A  QUESTION  OF 

BEING    THE 

OFFICIAL   CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

NICHOLAS  MURRAY    BUTLER 

President  of  Columbia  University 
AND 

J.   E.  SPINGARN 

Professor  of  Comparative  Literature,  and  Chairman  of  the  Division  of 
Modern  Languages  and  Literatures,  in  Columbia  University 

DURING  THE  ACADEMIC  YEAR  1910-1911 
WITH  OTHER  DOCUMENTS 


NEW  YORK 

PRINTED  FOR  DISTRIBUTION  AMONG  THE  ALUMNI 
1911 


"And  how  can  a  man  teach  with  authority,  which 
is  the  life  of  teaching, — how  can  he  be  a  doctor  in 
his  books,  as  he  ought  to  be,  or  else  had  better  be 
silent, — when  all  he  teaches,  all  he  delivers,  is  but 
under  the  tuition,  under  the  correction  of  a  patriar- 
chal licenser,  to  blot  or  alter  what  precisely  accords 
not  with  the  hide-bound  humour  which  he  calls  his 
judgment?  Yet  if  these  things  be  not  resented  seri- 
ously and  timely  by  them  who  have  the  remedy  in 
their  power,  the  more  sorrow  will  belong  to  that 
hapless  race  of  men,  whose  misfortune  it  is  to  have 
understanding.  Henceforth,  let  no  man  care  to 
learn,  or  care  to  be  more  than  worldly  wise ;  for  cer- 
tainly, in  higher  matters,  to  be  ignorant  and  sloth- 
ful, to  be  a  common  steadfast  dunce,  will  be  the  only 
pleasant  life/' — Milton's  Areopagitica. 


INTRODUCTION 


On  March  6,  1911,  without  explanation  of  any- 
kind,  Professor  J.  E.  Spingarn  was  "relieved  from 
further  academic  service"  at  Columbia  University. 
During  the  controversy  which  followed,  both  in 
academic  circles  and  in  the  public  press  through- 
out the  country,  constant  reference  was  made  to 
the  official  records  in  the  case,  which  appeared  in 
the  newspapers  in  imperfect  fragments  only.  It 
has  been  felt  by  many  that  the  time  has  now  come 
when  the  ends  of  higher  education  would  best  be 
served  by  the  publication  of  these  records  in  full. 
Certainly,  it  is  important  that  whatever  publicity 
is  attracted  to  the  worst  defects  of  our  univer- 
sities should  not  only  be  based  on  trustworthy 
data,  but  be  adequate  and  complete.  In  this  pam- 
phlet all  the  official  correspondence  that  passed 
between  Professor  Spingarn  and  President  Nich- 
olas Murray  Butler  during  the  academic  year 
1910-1911,  with  a  few  other  documents  germane 
to  the  case,  is  now  presented  to  the  consideration 
of  the  alumni  of  Columbia,  not  because  of  any 
interest  which  these  letters  or  documents  possess 
in  themselves,  but  in  the  hope  that,  by  the  very 
fact  of  publicity,  and  by  the  light  which  they  shed 
on  the  administration  of  the  University,  they  may 
serve  to  arouse  attention  to  the  cause  of  academic 
freedom. 

Columbia  University,  like  many  other  Ameri- 
can institutions,  but  unlike  the  old  universities  of 
Europe,  is  governed  by  a  self-perpetuating  Board 


4  INTRODUCTION 

of  Trustees,  consisting  of  financiers,  lawyers,  di- 
vines, and  other  men,  not  one  of  whom  is  a  scholar 
by  profession  or  familiar  with  the  more  intimate 
atmosphere  of  academic  life.  These  Trustees  con- 
trol the  finances,  appoint  and  promote  Professors, 
determine  educational  policy,  and  no  power  of  any 
kind  is  vested  in  any  faculty  of  the  University 
except  as  these  powers  are  granted  to  the  faculty 
by  the  Trustees.  The  President  is  the  only  officer 
of  the  University  who  sits  on  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees; no  member  of  the  teaching  staff  is  connected 
with  it  in  any  way,  or  has  any  means  of  official 
communication  with  it  except  through  the  President. 
Communications  of  any  kind  which  the  faculties 
or  individual  teachers  may  wish  to  present  to  this 
Board  must  therefore  pass  through  his  hands. 
Obviously,  this  gives  him  great  power.  The  pro- 
fessor who  wishes  to  be  promoted  or  to  have  his 
salary  increased  is  dependent  upon  the  good  will 
of  the  President  in  having  that  official  present  his 
case  as  favorably  as  possible  to  the  Trustees. 

Moreover,  all  the  officers  of  the  University  hold 
their  positions  "at  the  pleasure  of  the  Trustees." 
This  phrase  has  not  as  yet  received  final  adjudica- 
tion by  any  court  of  highest  resort,  but  it  is  inter- 
preted by  the  Trustees  to  mean  that  the  tenure  of 
professorial  office  is  absolutely  at  their  whim.  No 
personal  hearing  is  ever  given  by  them  to  any  mem- 
ber of  the  teaching  staff,  and  a  professor  may  learn 
of  their  intentions  only  after  they  have  made  their 
final  decision  of  dismissal.  This  further  increases 
the  immense  power  of  the  President,  since  it  is  pos- 
sible for  him  to  prejudice  the  minds  of  the  Trustees 
against  any  officer  toward  whom  his  own  feelings 
are  unfriendly  or  of  whom,  for  any  reason,  he  en- 
tertains an  unfavorable  opinion. 

But  even  this  does  not  adequately  describe  the 
conditions  of  university  government  at  Columbia. 


INTRODUCTION  5 

The  real  work  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  is  confided 
to  its  five  committees,  on  Finance,  on  Buildings  and 
Grounds,  on  Honors,  on  the  Library,  and  on  Educa- 
tion. The  last  of  these  determines  the  educational 
policy  of  the  university  and  the  status  of  the  teach- 
ing staff;  it  is  therefore  by  far  the  most  important 
in  all  that  concerns  the  university  as  an  institution 
of  learning.  Its  recommendations  are  accepted 
without  independent  investigation  and  often  even 
without  discussion  by  the  board  as  a  whole.  It  is 
therefore  in  a  sense  the  ultimate  power  in  the  life 
of  the  institution.  Yet  the  meetings  of  this  com- 
mittee, which  consists  of  seven  members,  are  seldom 
attended  by  more  than  three  or  four ;  and  the  desti- 
nies of  Columbia,  with  its  more  than  seven  hundred 
teachers  and  more  than  seven  thousand  students, 
are  settled  at  these  secret  conclaves  between  the 
President  and  three  or  four  of  his  friends. 

Under  such  a  system,  it  is  small  wonder  that  the 
President  is  surrounded  by  sycophants,  since  syco- 
phancy is  a  condition  of  official  favor ;  small  wonder 
that  intellectual  freedom  and  personal  courage 
dwindle,  explaining,  if  not  justifying,  the  jibe  of 
European  scholars  that  there  are  three  sexes  in 
America,  men,  women  and  professors ;  small  wonder 
that  permission  to  give  utterance  to  mild  theories 
of  parlor  socialism  is  mistaken  by  American  Uni- 
versities for  superb  freedom  of  action.  But  what- 
ever may  be  the  defects  or  the  virtues  of  this  sys- 
tem, it  fails  utterly  unless  the  President  is,  as  it 
were,  a  transparent  medium  between  the  teaching 
corps  and  the  Trustees.  If  he  misrepresents  the 
conditions  of  the  University;  if  he  distorts  the  com- 
munications entrusted  to  him  for  presentation  to 
the  Trustees ;  if  he  uses  his  position  to  serve  the  ends 
of  spite  or  rancor  or  his  own  ambition,  hapless  in- 
deed (in  Milton's  words)  is  that  race  of  men  whose 
misfortune  it  is  to  have  understanding.     Much,  too 


6  INTRODUCTION 

much,  depends  on  his  good  faith  and  honor.  It  is 
the  purpose  of  this  pamphlet  to  indicate  the  danger 
to  academic  freedom  and  to  the  higher  aims  of 
University  life  that  at  the  present  time,  for  this 
reason,  confronts  Columbia. 

The  Department  of  Comparative  Literature  was 
organized  by  Professor  George  E.  Woodberry  in 
1899,  and  for  eleven  years  Professor  Spingarn  was 
connected  with  the  Department  in  the  successive 
grades  of  Assistant,  Tutor,  Adjunct  Professor,  and 
Professor.  In  1910,  against  his  earnest  protests, 
this  Department  was  amalgamated  with  the  Eng- 
lish Department,  and  his  work  was  placed  under 
the  authority  of  the  Professors  of  English.  While 
promising  every  friendly  co-operation  with  his  new 
colleagues,  he  informed  them  that  he  reserved  the 
right  to  ignore  their  authority  whenever  it  might 
be  exerted  over  his  own  work  in  Comparative  Lit- 
erature. Accordingly,  on  November  18,  1910,  the 
Chairman  of  the  new  Department  addressed  a 
letter  of  complaint  to  the  President  of  the  Uni- 
versity. Professor  Spingarn's  stand  against  an 
administrative  move  dictated  solely  by  a  deadly  me- 
chanical routine,  miscalled  efficiency,  no  doubt 
alienated  some  of  his  English  colleagues.  Ulti- 
mately, however,  these  differences  were  amicably 
settled  at  a  conference  with  the  Chairman  of  the 
Department,  but  they  became  a  weapon  in  the  hands 
of  the  President,  which  he  soon  made  to  serve  his 
own  purpose. 

On  December  9,  1910,  Professor  Spingarn  intro- 
duced in  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy  a  brief  resolu- 
tion testifying  to  the  academic  services  of  a  well- 
known  scholar  who  had  recently  been  dismissed 
from  the  University,  and  who  was  then  suing  the 
President  for  libel.  The  dismissal  of  this  professor 
was  due  to  the  newspaper  notoriety  resulting  from 
a  legal  suit  against  him,  a  suit  which  had  not  yet 


INTRODUCTION  7 

been  tried  and  which  the  plaintiff  has  since  failed 
to  bring  to  trial;  but  the  justice  or  injustice  of  his 
dismissal  has  no  bearing  on  a  resolution  that  re- 
ferred solely  to  the  twenty-two  years  of  his  previous 
service  to  the  University.  Though  this  resolution 
was  laid  on  the  table,  it  was  not  Professor  Spin- 
garn's  intention  to  allow  the  matter  to  drop  there, 
and  he  so  informed  the  President  in  an  interview 
on  January  6,  1911.  The  President  thereupon  made 
the  following  threat:  "If  you  don't  drop  this  mat- 
ter you  will  get  into  trouble."  Professor  Spingarn 
answered:  "I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  altering 
my  conduct  because  of  the  prospect  of  trouble, 
Mr.  President."  President  Butler  was  soon  able  to 
carry  out  this  threat.  Within  ten  days — on  Janu- 
ary 16,  1911 — he  notified  Professor  Spingarn  that 
the  Committee  on  Education,  a  committee  of  the 
Trustees,  had  voted  to  abolish  Professor  Spingarn's 
chair  at  the  end  of  the  academic  year.  In  an  inter- 
view ten  days  later,  he  informed  Professor  Spingarn 
that  this  action  had  not  as  yet  been  ratified  by  the 
Board  as  a  whole,  and  that  it  was  his  intention  to 
recommend  that  the  action  be  withdrawn.  Since 
then  Professor  Spingarn  has  not  seen  the  President 
or  any  of  his  English  colleagues,  and  his  commu- 
nications with  the  President  have  been  limited  to 
three  letters;  but  on  March  6,  1911,  the  Trustees 
voted  not  only  to  abolish  his  professorship,  but  to 
relieve  him  immediately  from  all  further  academic 
service. 

This  colorless  and  impartial  outline  of  the  case 
takes  no  account  of  its  more  sordid  details.  Some 
of  these,  though  by  no  means  all,  will  be  found 
in  the  Correspondence  and  in  the  Chronology 
that  follow.  It  would  be  disheartening  to  a  proud 
son  of  Columbia  to  linger  over  all  the  details 
of  official  trickery  and  deception,  of  threat  and  in- 
sult, of  manners  even  worse  than  morals;  but  it 


8  INTRODUCTION 

would  be  unjust  to  those  who  love  Columbia's  honor 
to  hide  from  them  the  fact  that,  in  the  course  of 
this  single  incident,  the  President  of  their  alma 
mater  told  at  least  five  deliberate  falsehoods,  broke 
at  least  three  deliberate  promises,  and  denied  his 
own  statements  whenever  it  served  his  purpose  to 
do  so.  It  is  without  rancor,  and  with  deep  regret, 
that  Professor  Spingarn  feels  obliged  to  state  these 
facts,  and  to  express  his  mature  conviction  that  the 
word  or  promise  of  President  Butler  is  absolutely 
worthless  unless  it  is  recorded  in  writing,  and  that 
even  a  written  document  offers  no  certain  safeguard 
against  evasion  or  distortion.  It  is  to  this  executive, 
with  this  code  of  honor,  that  Columbia  entrusts  all 
avenues  of  communication  between  the  subservient 
Faculties  and  the  governing  Trustees. 

This  is  not  a  history  or  an  estimate  of  President 
Butler's  administration  of  Columbia;  it  is  merely 
the  record  of  a  single  abuse.  But  the  record  would 
be  incomplete  if  it  were  not  clearly  made  known 
that  the  facts,  so  far  from  being  exceptional,  are 
typical  of  his  executive  career.  It  is  not  merely 
that  Columbia's  greatest  teachers,  poets,  mu- 
sicians, have  been  lost  to  the  University  from  the 
very  outset  as  a  result  of  his  methods  and  his  pol- 
icies. The  real  scandal  is  worse  than  this.  It  is  that 
in  the  conduct  of  its  affairs  a  great  University,  so 
far  from  being  above  the  commercialism  of  its  in- 
dustrial environment,  actually  employs  methods  that 
would  be  spurned  in  the  humblest  of  business  un- 
dertakings. Even  the  decencies  of  ordinary  busi- 
ness are  not  always  observed ;  and  the  poor  scholar, 
unfamiliar  with  methods  such  as  these,  falls  an 
easy  prey.  No  device,  however  unworthy,  is  re- 
garded as  forbidden  by  custom  or  by  honor.  A 
professor  may  be  asked  to  send  in  a  purely  formal 
resignation  as  a  compliment  to  the  prospective  new 
head  of  his  department  and  then  be  dumbfounded 


INTRODUCTION  9 

to  have  his  letter  acted  upon  by  the  President  imme- 
diately upon  its  receipt,  and  before  the  new  head 
is  actually  appointed.  A  professor  may  be  induced 
to  come  to  Columbia  by  the  assurance  of  the  Presi- 
dent that  the  usual  contract  "for  three  years  or 
during  the  pleasure  of  the  Trustees"  involves  an 
actual  obligation  for  three  years  on  the  part  of  the 
University,  while  another  professor  holding  the 
same  contract  with  the  University  may  find  his 
chair  abolished,  on  the  recommendation  of  the 
President,  at  the  end  of  two  years.  These  are  actual 
cases.  It  would  be  unfair  to  particularize  further 
at  the  risk  of  ruining  the  career  of  some  scholar, 
who,  by  incurring  the  President's  displeasure,  might 
easily  find  himself  an  academic  outlaw;  but  it  is 
only  just  to  caution  the  newcomer  at  Columbia  that 
every  understanding  with  the  President's  office 
should  be  stated  in  writing  and  then  subjected  to 
the  scrutiny  of  a  lawyer  to  eliminate  the  possibility 
of  traps  and  loopholes.  It  would  almost  seem  as 
if  such  devices  as  these  have  been  the  methods  of 
his  ambition  from  the  outset  of  his  career.1  But 
the  exploitation  of  his  personal  fortunes  by  a  small 
coterie  will  not  forever  blind  the  alumni  to  the 
bitter  truth.  The  University  should  be  the  cradle 
and  the  home,  not  only  of  Reason,  but  of  Honor; 
and  a  lover  of  Columbia  cannot  remain  silent  until 
her  honor  is  once  more  secure. 

But  aside  from  the  defects  of  personal  character, 
there  is  a  larger  aspect  according  to  which  his  ad- 
ministration of  the  University  must  be  judged. 
Armed  with  the  power  given  him  by  the  secrecy 
of  Trustee  action  and  the  aloofness  of  this  ac- 
tion from  the  life  of  the  teaching  staff,  he 
has  (so  far  as  he  could)  stifled  all  manly  inde- 
pendence  and   individuality   whenever   it  has   ex- 


1  See,  e.  g.,  the   New  York   Times,  May   16,   1911. 


10  INTRODUCTION 

hibited  itself  at  Columbia.  He  has  surrounded  him- 
self with  pliant  and  unscrupulous  tools.  All  noble 
idealism,  and  all  the  graces  of  poetry  and  art,  have 
been  shrivelled  by  his  brutal  and  triumphant  power. 
He  has  made  mechanical  efficiency  and  administra- 
tive routine  the  goal  of  the  University's  endeavor. 
The  nobler  ends  of  academic  life  will  never  be 
served  so  long  as  this  spokesman  of  materialism  re- 
mains in  power. 


NOTE 


The  contents  of  this  pamphlet  are  as  follows:  (1)  The 
Official  Correspondence  between  President  Butler  and  Pro- 
fessor Spingarn  leading  up  to  the  retirement  of  the  latter 
from  Columbia  University;  (2)  A  minute  Chronology, 
printed  in  smaller  type,  for  the  benefit  of  the  few  who 
may  care  to  have  the  full  details,  and  giving  an  accurate 
record  of  Professor  Spingarn's  relations  with  the  Uni- 
versity during  the  year  1910-11;  (3)  Appendix  A,  contain- 
ing a  few  of  the  letters  received  by  Professor  Spingarn 
from  his  former  students  during  March  and  April,  1911, 
expressive  of  their  opinion  of  his  work  as  a  teacher;  and 
(4)  Appendix  B,  containing  a  list  of  his  chief  publications, 
with  a  few  reviews  and  letters  in  regard  to  his  work  as 
a  scholar  and  man  of  letters.  It  is  believed  that  these 
documents  furnish  adequate  data  for  a  full  and  impartial 
consideration  of  the  case. 


11 


Official  Correspondence   Between 

President    Butler    and 

Professor  Spingarn 

The  following  official  correspondence  includes  all  the  let- 
ters that  passed  between  President  Butler  and  Professor 
Spingarn  during  the  academic  year  1910-1911,  without 
omissions  of  any  kind. 

I.  FROM  PRESIDENT  BUTLER. 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of   New   York, 
President's  Room. 

November  21,  1910. 
Prof.  J.  E.  Spingarn, 

Columbia  University. 
My  dear  Prof.  Spingarn: 

I  have  received  from  the  Chairman  of  the  Department 
of  English  and  Comparative  Literature  a  memorandum, 
bearing  date  November  18,  1910,  which  sets  out  your 
relations  to  that  Department  as  your  colleagues  see  them 
and  expresses  the  opinion  that  these  relations  are  very 
unsatisfactory.  The  facts  stated  in  this  memorandum  are 
such  as,  if  unrefuted,  to  demand  consideration  by  the 
President  and  the  Committee  of  the  Trustees  on  Educa- 
tion. I  very  much  hope  that  you  may  be  able,  in  response 
to  this  letter,  to  give  me  a  written  statement  of  your 
position  that,  when  forwarded  to  the  Chairman  of  the 
Department  to  which  you  belong,  may  open  the  way  to 
the  establishment  of  complete  and  hearty  co-operation 
between  you  and  your  colleagues.  It  would  be  a  great 
disappointment  to  me  to  find  that  there  is  any  cause  for 
friction  between  yourself  and  your  colleagues  which  can- 
not be  speedily  removed. 

12 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  13 

The  substance  of  the  memorandum  to  which  I  refer 
above  is  contained  in  the  following  sentences,  as  to  the 
correctness  of  which  I  should  be  glad  to  have  an  expres- 
sion of  your  views: 

"Professor  Spingarn  believes  that  the  union  of  the  De- 
partments of  English  and  Comparative  Literature  is  a 
sort  of  outrage  to  him,  and  he  refuses  to  submit  to  it. 
He  has  only  friendly  feelings  toward  the  other  members 
of  the  Department  and  wishes  to  continue  to  give  his 
usual  courses  of  instruction  and  to  take  part  in  the  gen- 
eral academic  affairs  of  the  University.  He  refuses, 
however,  to  submit  to  the  authority  of  the  President 
and  Trustees  to  assign  him  to  a  Department,  and  his  atti- 
tude is  one  of  refusal  to  recognize  the  action  of  the 
Trustees.  In  consequence,  he  refuses  to  recognize  the 
authority  of  the  Department  or  to  serve  on  its  committees 
or  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it  officially.  ******* 
Apart  from  any  interest  in  Professor  Spingarn's  theories 
of  college  government,  the  practical  result  of  his  attitude 
very  decidedly  concerns  us.  The  line  which  he  draws 
between  departmental  and  other  duties  is  a  difficult  one 
to  follow.  ******  Moreover,  Professor  Spingarn's 
attitude  of  opposition  creates  bad  feeling  among  stu- 
dents, and  we  have  no  means  of  dealing  with  him  or 
even  of  offering  suggestions  until  the  main  issue  is  dis- 
posed of.  It  seems  clear  that  it  is  an  undesirable  condi- 
tion and  one  detrimental  to  the  efficiency  of  the  Depart- 
ment for  one  member  to  regard  himself  as  outside  of 
its  authority  and  co-operation. " 

Will  you  not  give  me  a  statement  of  your  views  in 
regard  to  these  matters  at  your  early  convenience? 

Faithfully    yours, 

(Signed)     Nicholas  Murray  Butlkr.1 


1  The  asterisks  in  this  letter  are  President  Butler's. 


14  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

II.    FROM   PROFESSOR  SPINGARN. 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York, 
Department    of    Comparative    Literature. 

November  23,   1910. 

Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  D.  C.  L., 

President  of  Columbia  University. 
My  dear  President  Butler: 

I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  21st,  in  which  you 
ask  for  an  expression  of  my  opinion  in  regard  to  a 
brief  passage  which  you  quote  from  a  memorandum  of 
the  Chairman  of  the  Department  of  English  and  Com- 
parative Literature,   dated  November   18,   1910. 

It  is  true  that  I  regard  the  amalgamation  of  the  De- 
partments of  English  and  Comparative  Literature  as  an 
unwise  step;  and  I  see  no  reason  why  I  should  not 
express  my  opinion  and  protest  in  respect  to  it,  until 
what  is  for  the  present  a  fait  accompli  shall  have  been 
altered  for  the  right.  But  it  is  not  true  that  I  have 
ever  refused  to  any  of  my  colleagues,  in  the  English 
Department  or  elsewhere,  the  benefit  of  such  counsel  and 
scholarship  as  it  is  in  my  power  to  offer  them.  It  is 
certainly  the  duty  of  a  teaching  scholar  to  place  his  intel- 
lectual gifts  (whatever  they  may  be)  at  the  service  of 
his  colleagues  as  well  as  of  his  students;  and,  so  far  as 
I  know,  I  have  never  been  unfaithful  to  this  ideal.  I 
confess  that  my  heart  sickens  at  the  very  thought  of 
administrative  tasks  for  which  I  have  neither  capacity 
nor  inclination,  and  I  do  not  propose  to  have  the  leisure 
for  productive  scholarship  interfered  with  by  any  addi- 
tional burdens  of  this  kind ;  but  certainly  every  manly 
and  high-minded  scholar  in  the  country  would  sympathize 
with  my  refusal  to  perform  such  tasks  whenever  they 
conflict  with  my  knowledge  of  my  own  capacity  or  my 
devotion  to  my  own  scholarly  ideals.  I  do  not  rate 
my  personal  counsel  and  advice  very  highly;  but  such  as 
it  is,  it  is  at  the  service  of  my  English   and  other  col- 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  15 

leagues  whenever  they  may  seek  it,  and  shall  always 
continue  to  be  at  their  service  so  long  as  I  remain  an 
officer  of  the  University. 

I  am  sending  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  the  Chairman 
of  the  Department  of  English  and  Comparative  Litera- 
ture, with  the  statement  that  it  is  your  personal  request 
that  he  and  I  arrange  an  interview  for  the  discussion  of 
this   whole   matter. 

Faithfully  yours, 

(Signed)     J.  E.  Spingarn. 


III.     FROM  PRESIDENT  BUTLER. 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of   New  York, 

President's   Room. 

January  16,  1911. 
Professor  J.  E.   Spingarn, 

Columbia  University. 
My  dear  Professor  Spingarn: 

The  Committee  of  the  Trustees  on  Education,  having 
before  them  the  letter  of  Professor  Thorndike,  dated 
November  18,  1910,  and  your  comments  thereon  dated 
November  23,  1910,  as  well  as  a  statement  of  subsequent 
conversations  that  I  have  had  with  both  you  and  Pro- 
fessor Thorndike,  and  having  particularly  in  mind  the 
financial  condition  of  the  University,  have  decided  that 
it  is  inexpedient  to  attempt  to  maintain  a  second  Profes- 
sorship of  Comparative  Literature.  They  are  therefore 
recommending  to  the  Trustees,  in  connection  with  the 
provisions  of  the  Budget  for  1911-12,  that  the  Professor- 
ship of  Comparative  Literature  now  held  by  you  be  dis- 
continued  from  and  after  June  30  next. 

You  will  recall  that  at  our  last  interview  I  intimated  to 
you  that  action  of  this  kind  was  quite  within  the  range 
of  possibility.  If  you  prefer  to  withdraw  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  your  own  motion  at  the  close  of  the  present 


16  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

academic  year,  you  will  of  course  take  such  action  as 
will  lead  to  this  end.  I  shall  hope  that  in  any  event  you 
will  continue  your  career  as  a  productive  scholar  in  the 
field  of  literary  criticism  in  which  you  have  already  made 
so  substantial  a  beginning. 

Very  truly  yours, 

(Signed)     Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 


IV.     FROM  PROFESSOR  SPINGARN. 

January  30,   1911. 

Nicholas  Murray  Butlkr,  D.  C.  L., 

President,  Columbia  University. 
My  dear  President  Butler: 

At  our  interview  last  Thursday  you  requested  me  to 
place  before  you  in  writing,  as  briefly  as  possible,  the 
grounds  of  my  dissatisfaction  with  your  letter  of  January 
16,  in  order  that  you  might  present  a  definite  statement  of 
my  position  to  the  Committee  on  Education  of  the  Trus- 
tees.    I  shall  try  to  be  as  brief  as  you  request. 

I  question  the  legal  right  of  the  Trustees  to  discontinue 
my  professorship  on  June  30  next.  They  entered  into  a 
contract  with  me  for  three  years  from  July  1,  1909,  and 
I  dispute  their  legal  power  to  terminate  this  contract  be- 
fore June  30,  1912,  without  cause.  But  wholly  regard- 
less of  this  contention,  I  insist  that  a  moral  obligation 
rests  upon  them  which  they  cannot  honorably  avoid' — 
certainly  not  by  pleading  "the  financial  condition  of  the 
University."  Poverty  is  no  excuse  for  attempting  to  ter- 
minate in  two  years  a  contract  that  does  not  expire  for 
at  least  three.  I  am  convinced  that  their  obligation  does 
not  end  even  then,  and  that  an  academic  tradition  par- 
taking of  the  strength  of  law  ensures  to  a  full  professor 
absolute  security  of  tenure  in  his  professorship  "during 
good  behavior."  After  five  or  ten  years  of  apprenticeship 
as  assistant,  tutor,  and  instructor,  the  professor  has  a  right 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  17 

to  feel  that  the  University  is  under  specific  obligations  to 
him  which  cannot  be  evaded  by  the  mere  plea  of  financial 
stringency,  unless  we  are  to  assume  that  all  obligations 
of  service  are  on  the  professor  and  none  whatever  on  the 
University.  I  cannot  therefore  regard  the  financial  plea 
as  vital  to  the  issue. 

The  letters  and  the  conversations  to  which  you  refer 
seem  to  me  to  have  no  greater  bearing  on  the 
case.  The  letter  of  Professor  Thorndike,  dated  Novem- 
ber 18,  refers  to  my  relations  with  the  members  of  the 
Department  of  English  and  Comparative  Literature,  who 
had  become  my  colleagues  some  six  weeks  earlier.  But 
the  statements  in  this  letter  are  no  longer  applicable  to 
the  present  case,  for  on  January  9  I  had  a  conversation 
with  Professor  Thorndike  in  regard  to  my  relations  with 
the  Department,  and  we  agreed  upon  a  modus  vivendi 
which  he  assured  me  was  perfectly  satisfactory  to  him. 
Two  days  later  he  again  told  me  that  the  Department  was 
thoroughly  satisfied  with  the  co-operation  arranged  for, 
that  it  was  unnecessary  for  me  to  communicate  the  result 
to  you,  as  he  was  obliged  to  see  you  in  a  day  or  two,  and 
that  he  would  personally  inform  you  of  our  satisfactory 
arrangement.  As  I  heard  nothing  from  him  or  from  you 
until  I  received  your  letter  of  January  16,  I  certainly  had 
the  right  to  suppose  that  my  relations  with  the  Depart- 
ment were  all  that  could  be  desired,  and  that  Professor 
Thorndike's  letter  of  November  18  had  been  practically 
(or  perhaps  even  technically)  withdrawn.  At  least  three 
members  of  the  Department,  including  Professor  Thorn- 
dike, have  stated  that  they  had  assumed  the  modus  vivendi 
of  January  9  (communicated  to  you  later)  had  closed  the 
whole  matter,  and  that  they  were  absolutely  unprepared 
for  the  action  of  the  Committee  on  Education  the  fol- 
lowing week.  I  do  not  see  how  the  letter  of  November 
18  can  now  be  urged  in  any  way  as  a  ground  for  discon- 
tinuing my   professorship. 

It  is  unnecessary  to  refer  to  the  causes  which  led  up 
to   Professor  Thorndike's  letter,   since  the   differences   of 


18  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

literary  and  scholarly  ideals  between  my  colleagues  and 
myself  did  not  prevent  the  arrangement  of  a  modus  vivendi 
satisfactory  to  all  the  other  members  of  the  Department. 
The  brief  extract  from  Professor  Thorndike's  letter  which 
you  cited  as  giving  the  gist  of  the  whole  (I  have  not  seen 
the  rest  of  the  letter)  deals  only  with  my  personal  and 
official  relations  with  my  immediate  colleagues,  and  it  is 
only  fair  to  me  to  say  that  these  colleagues  of  six  weeks 
were  not  in  a  position  to  express  an  adequate  judgment 
on  any  other  matter  concerning  me. 

You  will  doubtless  recall  that  when  I  saw  you  three  or 
four  days  after  you  had  received  Professor  Thorndike's 
letter  of  November  18,  you  told  me  that  you  did  not  wish 
to  present  it  to  the  Committee  on  Education  of  the  Trus- 
tees; that  I  should  see  Professor  Thorndike;  that  you 
felt  sure  the  matter  could  be  settled  between  him  and  me, 
and  that  you  would  withhold  his  letter  until  the  matter  had 
been  discussed  in  that  way. 

A  series  of  circumstances  (including  absence  during 
the  Christmas  vacation)  prevented  me  from  seeing  him 
for  some  time.  Before  I  could  do  so  the  following  in- 
cident occurred : 

On  December  9,  at  a  stated  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of 
Philosophy,  I  introduced  the  following  resolution,  which 
was  duly  seconded,  and  then  without  debate  laid  upon  the 
table : 

"Resolved,  That  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy  desires  to 
place  on  record  its  sense  of  the  academic  services  of  Harry 
Thurston  Peck,  who  was  connected  with  the  University 
for  twenty-two  years,  and  was  a  member  of  this  Faculty 
from  the  date  of  its  organization." 

I  venture  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  this  reso- 
lution refers  only  to  the  academic  services  of  Professor 
Peck.  Concerning  his  personal  or  non-academic  conduct 
I  had  no  knowledge  whatever  before  his  dismissal  from  the 
University;  I  cannot  recall  more  than  three  conversations 
with  him,  and  these  of  the  most  perfunctory  kind  only. 
I  could  speak  only  of  his  literary  and  scholarly  services 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  19 

to  the  University,  and  these  seemed  to  me  sufficient  to 
merit  at  least  a  modest  resolution  in  the  privacy  of  a 
faculty  meeting  among  his  own  former  colleagues.  By  no 
construction  of  the  resolution,  however  strained,  can  it 
be  supposed  to  reflect  on  any  action  taken  by  others,  or 
to  refer  to  anything  save  the  literary  and  scholarly  serv- 
ices which  Professor  Peck  may  be  assumed  to  have  ren- 
dered during  his  twenty-two  years  of  connection  with  the 
University.  I  refuse  to  believe  that  this  slight  act  of 
generous  pity,  however  mistaken  it  may  or  may  not  have 
been,  can  have  impaired  my  usefulness  to  the  University, 
or  justified  serious  official  displeasure.  And  yet,  shortly 
after  the  resolution  was  introduced,  Professor  Thorndike's 
letter  went  to  the  Committee  on  Education ;  upon  my  re- 
turn from  my  vacation  you  told  me  (January  6)  that  I 
would  get  into  trouble  if  I  did  not  drop  the  whole  Peck 
matter;  and  despite  Professor  Thorndike's  assurance  on 
January  9  that  everything  had  been  satisfactorily  arranged, 
I  soon  received  your  letter  of  January  16  announcing  the 
prospective  discontinuance  of  my  professorship. 

As  a  graduate  of  the  College,  as  well  as  a  doctor  of  the 
University,  I  hold  myself  second  to  none  in  loyalty  to  my 
alma  mater.  It  is  a  matter  of  pride  to  me  that  she  was 
a  pioneer  in  the  work  of  comparative  literature,  and  that 
I  have  had  the  honor  to  be  connected  with  this  pioneer 
work  from  the  outset.  My  doctoral  dissertation  was  the 
first  in  this  field  at  Columbia,  and  it  remains,  I  believe, 
the  only  contribution  to  the  history  of  European  literature 
by  a  living  American  scholar  that  has  been  translated  into 
a  foreign  tongue.  But  it  is  unreasonable  to  regard  com- 
parative literature  as  a  highly  technical  and  mysterious 
subject,  and  to  speak  of  the  inexpediency  of  maintaining 
two  professorships  devoted  to  it.  Every  professor  of  the 
history  of  literature  in  the  University  is  a  professor  of  com- 
parative literature;  and  conversely  every  professor  of 
comparative  literature  must  of  necessity  be  a  contributor  to 
the  literary  fields  of  his  colleagues.  When  I  made  a  certain 
modest  contribution  to  Italian  literary  history,  the  poet  Car- 


20  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

ducci  thanked  me  "in  the  name  of  Italian  literature"  and  not 
of  comparative  literature.  It  was  simply  as  a  competent 
literary  scholar,  I  imagine,  and  not  as  the  devotee  of  an 
esoteric  science,  that  I  was  invited  by  the  great  sister  uni- 
versities of  England  to  join  in  their  scholarly  work,  editing 
monuments  of  English  criticism  for  the  Clarendon  Press 
of  Oxford  and  contributing  a  chapter  to  the  Cambridge 
History  of  English  Literature.  To  abolish  comparative 
literature  (except  as  a  mere  name)  is  to  abolish  literary 
history ;  the  terms  are  really  synonymous.  Instead  of 
diminishing  the  number  of  professorships  devoted  to  it, 
it  would  at  least  be  more  reasonable  to  suggest  that  one 
or  more  be  added  to  every  literary  department  in  the  Uni- 
versity, in  order  that  one  or  two  scholars  in  every  de- 
partment should  be  able  to  see  beyond  its  own  national  or 
parochial  limits. 

I  reassert  my  loyalty  to  my  alma  mater;  but  if  security 
of  tenure  in  the  professorship,  if  fidelity  to  contract  or  a 
sense  of  obligation  to  the  academic  profession,  if  freedom 
of  speech  and  conduct  do  not  exist  at  Columbia,  it  is  right 
that  the  academic  world  should  know  it. 

Believe  me  always,  my  dear  Mr.  President, 

Faithfully  yours, 

(Signed)     J.  E.  Spingarn. 


V.     FROM   PRESIDENT   BUTLER. 

Columbia  University  in  the  City  of   New   York, 

President's   Room. 

February  3,  1911. 

Professor  J.  E.  Spingarn, 

Columbia  University. 
Dear  Professor  Spingarn: 

Your  letter  bearing  date  January  30,  1911,  was  received 
by  me  yesterday  morning  and  laid  before  the  Committee 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  21 

of  the  Trustees  on  Education  at  their  meeting  held  yes- 
terday afternoon. 

I  am  directed  by  the  Committee  to  say  that  your  letter 
made  upon  them  a  most  unfavorable  impression,  both  in 
tone  and  in  content.  It  was  particularly  unfortunate,  in 
view  of  the  specific  statement  which  I  made  to  you  dur- 
ing our  conversation  on  January  26,  that  you  should  now 
endeavor  to  create  the  impression  that  the  resolution  in- 
troduced by  you  at  the  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of  Phil- 
osophy, held  on  December  9,  had  any  relation  whatever 
to  the  present  discussion  of  your  University  status  and 
efficiency.  As  you  were  distinctly  informed  by  me,  neither 
the  President  nor  any  member  of  the  Committee  on  Edu- 
cation was  aware  of  the  fact  that  you  had  introduced  any 
resolution  at  the  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy 
at  the  time  when  consideration  of  your  relation  to  the 
Department  of  English  and  Comparative  Literature  was 
begun.  At  no  time  has  the  fact  that  you  introduced  the 
resolution  to  which  you  refer  had  any  bearing  or  influ- 
ence on  the  matter  in  any  way  whatsoever.  The  Com- 
mittee was  unable,  because  of  a  long  calendar  of  business, 
to  conclude  the  consideration  of  the  matters  to  which  your 
letter  relates,  but  the  present  intention  of  the  Committee 
is  not  to  recommend  a  continuance  of  your  connection 
with  the  University.  When  the  Committee's  consideration 
of  the  matter  is  completed,  I  shall  be  glad  to  advise  you 
of  the  result. 

I  shall  also  take  this  opportunity  to  point  out  to  you  that 
the  statements  contained  in  your  letter  of  January  30,  so 
far  as  they  relate  to  conversations  with  me,  are  inaccurate 
and  misleading,  and  Professor  Thorndike,  to  whom  the 
letter  has  been  shown,  tells  me  that  the  same  is  true  of 
your  references  to  conversations  with  him.  I  observe, 
for  example,  that  you  say  that  I  told  you  that  you  would 
get  into  trouble  if  you  did  not  drop  the  whole  Peck  mat- 
ter. What  I  really  told  you  was  that  you  would  get  into 
trouble  if  you  persisted  in  your  intention  to  send  to  Pro- 


22  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

fessor  Russell  the  letter  of  which  you  read  me  a  draft, 
which  I  regarded  as  very  impertinent.1 
Yours  truly, 
(Signed)     Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 


1  The  letter  to  which  President   Butler  refers  was  as   follows: 

"Columbia  University,  January  4,  1911. 
Professor  James  E.  Russell,  LL.D., 

Teachers    College. 
My  dear  Sir: 

At  a  stated  meeting  of  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy,  held  Decem- 
ber 9,  1910,  I  introduced  the  following  resolution,  which  was  duly 
seconded : 

"Resolved,  That  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy  place  on  record  its 
sense  of  the  academic  services  of  Harry  Thurston  Peck,  who  was 
connected  with  the  University  for  twenty-two  years,  and  was  a 
member  of  this  Faculty  from  the  date  of  its  organization." 

This  resolution  touched  on  no  delicate  or  controversial  issue, 
and  was  so  framed  as  to  embarrass  no  one.  Certainly  no  one 
could  possibly  deny  that  in  the  long  stretch  between  1888  and 
1910  Harry  Thurston  Peck  did  render  "academic  services"  to  the 
University.  If  he  did  not,  why  was  he  retained  by  the  University 
for  twenty-two  years?  And  if  he  did,  why  should  his  own  Faculty 
refuse  to  acknowledge  it? 

But  I  was  not  permitted  to  make  this  brief  explanation.  As 
I  was  in  the  act  of  rising  to  my  feet,  you,  Sir,  ignored  what  I 
believe  to  be  a  vital  tradition  of  this  Faculty  by  moving  to  lay  the 
resolution  on  the  table,  thus  shutting  off  all  debate.  In  the  six 
years  of  my  membership  in  this  Faculty  I  recall  no  "motion  to  lay 
on  the  table" — certainly  no  attempt  to  prevent  the  mover  of  a  reso- 
lution from  explaining  the  purport  of  his  own  motion.  Whatever 
your  motive  for  this  action,  some  reparation  for  this  discourtesy 
is  due  me ;  you  owe  it  to  me  to  withdraw  the  resolution  from  the 
table,  in  order  that  I  may  have  an  opportunity  to  discuss  it,  even 
if  it  is  your  intention  to  lay  it  on  the  table  immediately  after  I 
have  closed  my  discussion.  The  President  of  the  University  (if 
my  memory  does  not  err)  once  ruled  that  a  professor's  motion 
does  not  even  need  a  second ;  an  opportunity  for  full  discussion 
is  guaranteed  by  academic  tradition ;  and  I  am  convinced  that 
if  the  President  had  occupied  the  chair,  he  would  have  ruled  your 
motion  to  lay  on  the  table  out  of  order,  on  the  ground  that  no 
parliamentary  device,  whether  legitimate  or  the  reverse,  should 
be  permitted  to  curtail  the  full  expression  of  opinion  in  the 
Faculty  of  Philosophy.  Sincerely  yours, 

J.  E.  Spingarn." 

The  original  draft  of  this  letter  was  shown  to  President  Butler 
as  a  matter  of  courtesy;  but  the  letter  was  never  sent  to  Professor 
Russell,  because  Professor  Spingarn  learnt  later  that,  once  before, 
a  motion  to  lay  on  the  table  had  been  made  and  carried  in  the 
Faculty  of  Philosophy,  and  also  that  Professor  Russell  was  likely 
to  be  absent  from  the  University  before  another  Faculty  meeting 
could  be   held. 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  23 

VI.     FROM  PROFESSOR  SPINGARN. 

Department    of   Comparative    Literature, 

Columbia  University,  New  York. 

February   8,    1911. 
Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 

President,  Columbia  University. 
My  dear  President  Butler: 
•  I  do  not  wish  to  mar  a  dozen  years  of  dignified  academic 
service  by  unseemly  personal  controversy ;  and  I  shall 
therefore  ignore  the  offensive  tone  of  your  letter  of  Febru- 
ary 3.  But  in  justice  to  myself  I  cannot  permit  some  of 
its  statements  to  remain  uncorrected.  Opinions  and  im- 
plications may  always  be  reasonably  disputed ;  but  every 
statement  of  fact  in  my  letter  of  January  30  was  made 
with  careful  and  deliberate  accuracy.  Professor  Thorn- 
dike  certainly  will  not  dispute  that  on  January  9  he  told  me 
that  the  agreement  I  made  then  in  regard  to  my  relation 
with  his  Department  was  "satisfactory"  to  him;  he  will 
not  dispute  that  he  allowed  me  to  go  away  from  that  inter- 
view with  the  distinct  impression  that  the  question  at  issue 
had  been  amicably  settled ;  he  will  not  dispute  that  two 
days  later,  when  promising  to  inform  you  of  our  under- 
standing, he  said  nothing  that  would  lead  me  to  change 
this  impression.  These  are  the  essential  facts,  and  I  pos- 
itively refuse  to  believe  that  Professor  Thorndike  would 
call  these  misleading  or  inaccurate. 

I  regret  also  that  I  cannot  agree  with  your  account  of 
our  penultimate  interview  on  January  6,  in  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  your  threat  of  "trouble."  It  is  true  that  I  pre- 
sented to  you  a  draft  of  a  letter  to  Professor  Russell,  who 
had  made  the  motion  to  lay  my  Peck  resolution  on  the 
table  at  the  Faculty  meeting  on  December  9.  This  letter 
(of  which  I  shall  be  glad  to  furnish  you  a  copy  if  you 
so  desire)  was  a  courteous  request  to  Professor  Russell 
to  withdraw  his  motion  to  lay  on  the  table  at  the  next 
meeting  of  the  Faculty,  in  order  that  I  might  reopen  the 


24  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

question  of  the  Peck  resolution.  A  threat  that  I  should 
drop  this  letter  was  therefore  in  any  case  a  threat  that 
I  should  drop  the  Peck  resolution.  But  as  a  matter  of 
fact  your  words  related,  not  to  this  letter,  but  to  the  whole 
Peck  matter  itself.  Your  exact  words  were:  "If  you 
don't  drop  this  matter,  you  will  get  into  trouble."  My  ex- 
act answer  was :  "I  am  not  in  the  habit  of  altering  my 
conduct  because  of  the  prospect  of  trouble,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent." In  view  of  the  fact  that  you  made  this  threat  on 
January  6  and  that  it  was  so  speedily  followed  by  the 
announcement  (January  16)  of  the  prospective  discon- 
tinuance of  the  second  professorship  of  comparative  litera- 
ture, I  regret  that  I  cannot  accept  your  statement  that  the 
Peck  matter  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  Nor  am  I 
alone  among  my  colleagues  in  this  belief;  for  example,  Pro- 
fessor Thorndike  himself  told  me  and  another  professor 
of  the  University  that  he  believed  the  Peck  matter  "had 
something  to  do"  with  the  result.  I  am  glad,  however,  to 
recall  your  assurance  to  me  that  the  action  of  the  Commit- 
tee on  Education  was  merely  an  administrative  move  in  the 
direction  of  economy  and  of  concentration  of  effort,  and 
was  in  no  way  a  personal  matter  relating  to  me  or  my  work. 
You  had  tried  to  get  rid  of  the  anthropologists  for  similar 
motives  (so  you  assured  me),  and  comparative  literature 
seemed  to  you,  I  presume,  as  useless  as  anthropology. 

Sincerely  yours,      * 
(Signed)     J.  E.  Spingarn. 

VII.    FROM  PRESIDENT  BUTLER. 
Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York, 
President's  Room. 

February  10,  1911. 
Professor  J.  E.  Spingarn, 

9  West  73d  Street,    New  York. 
Dear  Professor  Spingarn: 

To  your  letter  of  February  8,  no  reply  appears  to  be 
appropriate  other  than  an   acknowledgment   of  its   receipt 


OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE  25 

and  a  statement  that  it  will  be  laid  before  the  Committee 
on  Education  when  they  next  meet. 

There  are  special  reasons  why  that  Committee  will  be 
very  much  interested  in  your  statement  that  I  assured  you 
that  I  "had  tried  to  get  rid  of  the  anthropologists." 

Yours  truly, 
(Signed)     Nicholas  Murray  Butler. 


VIII.    FROM  PRESIDENT  BUTLER. 
Columbia  University  in  the  City  of  New  York, 
President's  Room. 

Professor  J.  E.  Spingarn,  March  7,  1911. 

9  West  73d  Street, 
New  York. 
Dear  Sir: 

It  becomes  my  duty  to  advise  you  that  at  a  meeting  of 
the  Trustees  of  Columbia  College  in  the  City  of  New  York 
held  yesterday,  at  which  time  your  letter  addressed  to  me 
under  date  of  February  8,  1911,  was  laid  before  the  Board, 
the  following  resolutions  presented  by  the  Committee  on 
Education  were  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  the  Professorship  of  Comparative 
Literature  held  by  Joel  Elias  Spingarn,  be  and  the  same 
hereby  is,  abolished  and  discontinued  from  and  after 
June  30,  1911. 

Resolved,  That  Professor  Spingarn  be  relieved  from 
further  academic  service  from  and  after  March  6, 
1911. 

Professor  A.  H.  Thorndike  has  been  advised  of  this 
action,  and  will  make  arrangements  for  the  carrying  on 
during  the  remainder  of  the  half-year  of  the  courses  of 
instruction  which  have  heretofore  been  entrusted  to  you. 

Respectfully, 
(Signed)     Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 

President. 


26  OFFICIAL    CORRESPONDENCE 

IX.   FROM  PROFESSOR  SPINGARN. 

March  11,  1911. 
Dr.  Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 

President  of  Columbia  University. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  receipt  of  your  letter  of  March 
7.  I  shall  make  no  comment  on  your  failure  to  observe 
the  promise  contained  in  your  letter  of  February  3  that 
you  would  inform  me  of  the  recommendations  of  the  Com- 
mittee on  Education  "when  the  Committee's  consideration 
of  the  matter  is  completed/'  I  shall  merely  record  my 
formal  protest  against  the  action  taken  by  the  Trustees  on 
March  6  as  morally  and  legally  unwarranted  and  unjustifi- 
able, and  state  my  belief  that  they  would  not  have  taken 
an  action  so  obversive  of  academic  freedom  if  all  the  facts 
in  the  case  had  been  fully  presented  to  them. 

Very  truly  yours, 

(Signed)     J.  E.  Spingarn. 


CHRONOLOGY 


1895.    J.  E.  Spingarn  graduated  from  Columbia  College. 
1895-1896.     Graduate  study  at  Harvard. 
1896-1899.     Graduate  study  at  Columbia. 

1899.  Receives  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  The  De- 
partment of  Comparative  Literature  organized  by  Professor  George 
E.  Woodberry,  with  Dr.  Spingarn  as  his  chief  assistant. 

1900.  Promoted  to  Tutor  in   Comparative   Literature. 

1904.  Professor  Woodberry  resigns,  and  Dr.  Spingarn  is  pro- 
moted to  be  Adjunct  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature. 

1909.  Promoted  to  be  Professor  of  Comparative  Literature. — 
Designated  by  President  Butler  as  the  representative  of  Columbia 
at  the  Poe  Centenary  Celebration  at  New  York  University. 

1910.  Elected  Chairman  of  the  Division  of  Modern  Languages 
and  Literatures  for  the  academic  year  1910-11.  The  Trustees,  de- 
spite the  protests  of  Professor  Spingarn,  decide  to  amalgamate 
the  Department  of  Comparative  Literature  and  the  Department  of 
English  into  one  department,  of  which  Dr.  A.  H.  Thorndike,  Pro- 
fessor   of    English,    was    designated    as    Chairman. 

September  28,  1910.  The  University  reopens.  After  eleven 
years  of  service  in  his  own  Department  (the  Department  of  Com- 
parative Literature)  Professor  Spingarn  now  for  the  first  time 
becomes  a  member  of  the  new  Department  of  English  and  Com- 
parative Literature  under  the  authority  of  the  professors  of  Eng- 
lish. He  protests  against  the  right  of  the  professors  of  English  to 
exercise   authority   over   his   own   work   in   comparative   literature. 

November  11,  1910.  Professors  William  P.  Trent  and  Brander 
Matthews  call  at  Professor  Spingarn's  office  in  order  to  learn 
his  position.  They  assure  him,  in  the  most  flattering  terms,  of 
their  high  regard  for  his  work.  In  reply,  he  assures  them  of  his 
willingness  to  co-operate  with  his  English  colleagues  in  every 
way,  but  reserves  the  right  to  ignore  their  authority  if  exerted 
in   regard  to   his  own   teaching  in  comparative   literature. 

November  18,  1910.  Professor  A.  H.  Thorndike,  Chairman 
of  the  Department,  writes  a  letter  to  President  Butler,  charging 
Professor  Spingarn  with  refusing  to  admit  the  authority  of  the 
Department. 

November  21,  1910.  President  Butler  writes  to  Professor 
Spingarn  in  regard  to  these  charges,  citing  a  portion  of  Professor 
Thorndike's  letter  of  November  18,  and  asking  for  an  expression 
of  Professor  Spingarn's  views  in  regard  to  the  whole  matter  (see 
page  12).  President  Butler  writes  that  the  portion  cited  contains 
the  "substance"  of  Professor  Thorndike's  letter;  Professor  Spin- 
garn has  no  other  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the  letter. 

November  22,  1910.  Professor  Spingarn  calls  on  the  President, 
who  urges  him  to  see  Professor  Thorndike  and  settle  this  "tempest 

27 


28  CHRONOLOGY 

in  a  teapot,"  and  assures  him  that  he  will  not  take  official  notice 
of  the  matter  until  this  interview  has  taken  place. 

November  23,  1910.  Professor  Spingarn  writes  an  acknowledg- 
ment of  the  President's  letter,  pending  the  interview  with  Pro- 
fessor Thorndike   (see  page  14). 

December  9,  1910.  Professor  Spingarn  introduces  the  Peck 
resolution  in  the  Faculty  of  Philosophy  (see  his  letter  of  Janu- 
ary 30,  1911);  on  motion  of  Professor  Russell,  this  resolution 
is  laid  on  the  table. 

December  21,  1910,  to  January  3,  1911.  Christmas  vacation.' 
Professor  Spingarn  was  in  poor  health  during  the  previous  weeks, 
and  the  interview  with  Professor  Thorndike  was  delayed. 

January  4,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  discusses  the  matter  with 
Professor  Thorndike. 

January  6,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  calls  on  the  President. 
Incidentally  he  shows  the  President  a  letter  intended  for  Professor 
Russell  who  had  moved  to  lay  the  Peck  resolution  on  the  table 
at  the  Faculty  meeting  of  December  9;  the  purpose  of  the  letter 
was  to  renew  the  Peck  resolution  (see  page  22).  The  President 
deliberately  states  that  he  had  never  heard  of  the  Peck  resolution 
before.  He  says :  "If  you  don't  drop  this  matter,  you  will 
get  into  trouble."  Professor  Spingarn  replies :  "I  am  not  in  the 
habit  of  altering  my  conduct  because  of  the  prospect  of  trouble,  Mr. 
President." 

January  9,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  again  sees  Professor 
Thorndike,  and  arrives  at  an  amicable  settlement  of  the  question 
at  issue  between  him  and  the  Department.  Professor  Thorndike 
states  that   he   is   satisfied  with  the  arrangement. 

January  11,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  asks  Professor  Thorndike 
whether  he  should  communicate  the  result  of  the  discussion  to  the 
President.     Professor  Thorndike   says  that  he  will  do  so  himself. 

January  16,  1911.  President  Butler  notifies  Professor  Spingarn 
that  the  Committee  on  Education  (a  committee  of  the  Board  of 
Trustees)  has  decided  to  discontinue  his  professorship  at  the 
end  of  the  academic  year,  i.  e.,  June  30,  1911  (see  page  15). 
(Dr.  Butler  writes  that  "it  is  inexpedient  to  maintain  a  second 
professorship  of  comparative  literature";  neither  in  this  letter 
nor  at  any  other  time  did  the  President  express  to  Professor 
Spingarn  any  dissatisfaction  with  his  work.  (Note  that  Professor 
Spingarn's  present  contract  with  the  University  reads  "for  three 
years  from  July  1,  1909,  or  during  the  pleasure  of  the  Trustees"; 
that  the  President  later  acknowledged  that  this  constituted  a 
moral  if  not  a  legal  obligation  on  the  part  of  the  University,  and 
that  at  least  one  professor  has  come  to  Columbia  on  the  written 
statement  of  the  President  that  this  contract  constituted  an  actual 
obligation  for  three  years.) 

January  21-22,  1911.  The  members  of  the  English  Department 
learn  of  the  action  of  the  Committee  on  Education  for  the  first  time, 
with  great  surprise.  From  this  time,  however,  Professor  Thorndike 
acts  in  such  a  manner  that  it  becomes  a  duty  to  warn  his  colleagues 
and  others  to  be  wary  in  all  their  dealings  with  him. 

January  26,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  sees  the  President,  who 
assures  him  that  the  action  of  the  Committee  was  an  administra- 
tive move  not  reflecting  on  him  or  his  work;  that  he  (the  Presi- 
dent) would  urge  the  Committee  to  rescind  its  action,  and  that 
Professor   Spingarn's  chair  would  not  be  abolished  at  the  end  of 


CHRONOLOGY  29 

the  academic  year.  He  advises  Professor  Spingarn  to  write  a 
formal  answer  to  the  letter  of  January  16,  and  suggests  the  sub- 
stance of  such  a  reply,  which  Professor  Spingarn  disregards  in 
his  letter  of  January  30.  At  three  o'clock  on  the  same  day,  Pro- 
fessor Spingarn  sees  Professor  Thorndike,  who  states  that  he 
(Professor  Thorndike)  and  one  or  two  English  colleagues  had 
been  called  to  the  President's  office  and  had  been  informed  that 
Professor  Spingarn's  professorship  would  not  be  discontinued. 
(Professor  Spingarn  has  not  held  any  conversation  with  the  Pres- 
ident or  any  member  of  the  English  Department  since  this  date.) 

January  30,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  writes  his  reply  to  the" 
President,  reviewing  the  whole  case    (see  page  16). 

February  3,  1911.  The  President  replies  (see  page  20). 
Note  the  offensive  tone  of  the  letter  ("inaccurate,"  "misleading," 
"impertinent,"    etc.). 

February  8.  Professor  Spingarn  replies,  denying  the  allegations 
of  the  President  (see  page  23). 

February  10,  1911.  The  President  writes  a  brief  acknowledg- 
ment (see  page  24). 

March  7,  1911.  The  President  announces  that  the  Trustees  on 
March  6  had  "relieved"  Professor  Spingarn  "from  further 
academic  service,"  to  take  effect  immediately,  as  well  as  voted  to 
discontinue  his  professorship  at  the  end  of  the  academic  year 
(see  page  25). 

March  11,  1911.  Professor  Spingarn  sends  a  formal  protest 
(see  page  26).  (Note  the  President's  breach  of  faith  in  not 
notifying  him  of  the  action  of  the  Committee  on  Education  until 
their  recommendation  had  been  acted  upon  by  the  Trustees  as  a 
whole.) 

April  6,  1911.  In  this  and  subsequent  issues  of  the  Columbia 
Alumnia  News,  the  managing  editor,  Dr.  Robert  Arrowsmith, 
knowingly  publishes  false  and  libellous  articles  in  regard  to  Pro- 
fessor Spingarn,  but  in  the  issue  of  May  18  is  obliged  to  publish 
the  following  editorial  retraction :  "Nothing  was  further  from  the 
intention  of  the  News  than  to  injure  Professor  Spingarn  or  to 
reflect  upon  him  personally  or  as  a  scholar,  and  we  should  regret 
to   appear   to   have   done   so." 


APPENDIX 

NOTE 

It  is  with  great  reluctance  that  Professor  Spingarn,  at 
the  urgent  request  of  the  Columbia  alumni  whose  advice 
is  responsible  for  the  publication  of  this  pamphlet,  has  de- 
cided to  include  the  following  Appendix.  Their  arguments 
have  for  the  main  part  taken  this  form :  "There  have  ap- 
peared in  the  Columbia  Alumni  News  and  in  one  or  two 
daily  papers,  no  doubt  at  the  instigation  of  the  University 
authorities,  anonymous  attacks  reflecting  upon  the  character 
of  your  work.  To  us  it  seems  essential  that  these  attacks 
be  squarely  met,  not  as  a  matter  of  personal  defence,  but 
simply  that  the  body  of  alumni  may  have  all  the  evidence 
at  their  disposal.  To  many  disinterested  outsiders  the  value 
of  your  work  as  teacher  and  scholar  will  have  a  vital  con- 
sequence in  deciding  the  question  at  issue.  A  full  state- 
ment of  the  case  must  include  at  least  some  testimony 
along  these  lines ;  without  such  testimony  the  record  is  not 
complete.  You  may  of  course  shield  yourself  behind  the 
claims  of  modesty  or  pride  or  personal  dignity;  but  if  you 
really  intend  to  give  whole-hearted  service  to  a  great  issue, 
it  is  your  duty  to  forget  your  own  reluctance,  to  disregard 
the  possibility  of  misrepresentation  or  misunderstanding 
on  the  part  of  others,  and  to  serve  the  cause  of  Columbia 
and  of  academic  freedom  as  well  as  you  can." 


30 


APPENDIX    A. 

LETTERS   FROM    STUDENTS   AND   ALUMNI. 

The  following  letters  have  been  selected  from  those  re- 
ceived by  Professor  Spingarn  from  his  former  students 
shortly  after  his  separation  from  the  University.  To  these 
a  few  other  letters  have  been  added,  as  indicative  of  the 
attitude  of  Columbia  alumni  in  general. 

FROM  GRADUATE  STUDENTS. 

"I  was  informed  this  afternoon  that  your  connection  with 
the  University  was  severed,  and  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
sorry  I  was  to  hear  it.  It  was,  in  my  mind,  a  great  privi- 
lege for  me  to  be  able  to  attend  one  of  your  courses,  and 
in  a  few  months  I  had  learnt  much  that  I  could  not  have 
learnt  from  books  in  years.  *  *  *  Your  departure  means 
a  great  loss  to  me,  as  well  as  to  many  students  present  and 
to  come  in  Columbia  University." 

"It  was  my  intention  to  write  you  last  week  directly 
after  I  heard  of  the  break  in  your  connections  with  Colum- 
bia. But  the  feeling  of  my  personal  loss  was  so  immediate 
that  I  hesitated  lest  I  be  too  selfish  in  my  expression  of 
concern.  But  time  has  served  only  to  deepen  the  impres- 
sion that  the  loss  is  particularly  ours,  and  that  this  change 
only  gives  you  free  play  for  your  activities.  Although  I 
cannot  hope  to  be  any  less  grieved  for  myself  than  I  was 
a  week  ago,  I  trust  you  will  understand  and  pardon  the 
delay.  If  during  my  course  at  Columbia  my  critical  atti- 
tude toward  literature  has  been  vastly  changed,  and,  as  I 
believe,  made  broader  and  more  rational,  that  is  the  result 

31 


32  LETTERS    FROM   STUDENTS 

of  the  work  I  have  done  with  you,  and  I  should  like  you  to 
know  it.  Neither  can  I  let  this  occasion  pass  of  expressing 
my  appreciation  of  your  ideas  and  my  admiration  for  them. 
I  believe  them  to  be,  as  they  have  seemed  to  me,  compre- 
hensive, true,  above  the  whims  of  a  race  or  an  age.  In 
contrast  with  so  much  that  is  bizarre  and  one-sided,  they 
have  particularly  appealed  to  me." 

"I  am  very  sorry  to  learn  that  you  have  left  the  Uni- 
versity. You  have  inspired  me  in  my  work,  and  I  feel  that 
I  have  greatly  profited  by  your  wide  knowledge  and  thor- 
ough scholarship;  even  more  than  the  latter  have  your 
keen  criticism  and  suggestive  ideas  aided  me  in  my 
work." 

"May  one  of  your  former  students  express  her  great 
regret  that  Columbia  is  to  lose  the  prestige  she  derived 
from  your  teaching  and  distinguished  reputation?  I  must 
be  one  of  many  who  feel  the  same." 

"In  expressing  hereby  the  full  measure  of  my  regret 
on  your  resignation  from  Columbia,  I  am  afraid  I  shall 
violate  the  strict  rules  of  formality,  nevertheless  I  venture 
to  hope  that  you  will  excuse  me  in  case  this  should  become 
a  long  and  tedious  letter.  First  I  must  confess  that  after 
hearing  and  reading  so  much  about  the  cause  I  am  still  in 
the  dark,  nor  are  my  fellow-students  more  enlightened  on 
that  score.  One  thing,  however,  is  evident — their  sincere 
regret,  in  which  they  are  joined  by  the  students  of  the  other 
classes.  As  for  me,  my  regret  is  still  more  profound.  *  *  * 
This  very  freedom  is  what  I  most  admired  in  your  lectures 
while  I  profited  by  them,  and  this  is  why  I  regret  partic- 
ularly your  resignation." 

"*  *  *  At  all  events,  the  Faculty  of  Columbia  Uni- 
versity is  certainly  a  greater  loser  than  you,  as  a  result  of 
their  action.  Judging  by  my  own  personal  experience, 
which  has  been  confirmed  by  conversation  with  more  than 


APPENDIX  A  33 

one  graduate  student  of  Columbia,  your  lectures  were  of 
stimulating  and  suggestive  character,  which  were  conspicu- 
ous for  their  rarity.  " 

"I  have  just  read  your  splendid  and  courageous  state- 
ment in  the  Times.  I  am  thankful  that  there  is  one  man 
in  the  university  world  with  the  courage  of  his  convictions. 
You  are  paying  the  penalty  of  asserting  your  manhood ;  but 
'what  is  banished  but  set  free  from  things  I  daily  loath.' 
It  is  partly  our  conscience,  but  mostly  our  pockets  which 
make  cowards  of  us  all ;  but  we  are  cowards,  none  the  less. 

I   wish   that   Columbia's   loss   might   be   University's 

gain.  We  need  sorely  men  of  your  type  and  scholars  of 
your  ability." 

"Nothing  has  pleased  me  so  much,  in  a  long  time,  as 
the  account  in  the  paper  of  your  differences  with  Columbia 
University  as  represented  by  Dr.  Butler.  It  is  such  a 
satisfaction  to  know  that  there  really  is  a  member  of  the 
faculty  bold  enough  to  speak  his  mind  'in  meeting.'  Natu- 
rally, former  students  of  the  Comparative  Literature 
department  have  resented  Dr.  Butler's  attitude  toward  that 
department." 

FROM  UNDERGRADUATE  STUDENTS. 

"I  want  to  express  to  you  my  keen  personal  regret  at 
your  leaving  us.  I  confess  that  rarely  was  I  so  disap- 
pointed. *  *  *  You  will  pardon  my  strong  words  in  this 
matter  when  you  understand  that  I  am  concerned  person- 
ally in  it,  as  is  every  man  at  Columbia  so  fortunate  as  to 
have  had  you  as  a  teacher.  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that 
your  going  meant  that  the  choicest  flavor  of  my  college 
work  has  vanished — really  the  only  course  that  I  took  an 
interest  in  that  was  personal  and  spontaneous;  now  what 
is  mainly  left  of  my  academic  work  here  is  to  turn  over  a 
few  dusty  dry  bones  in  courses,  some  of  which  have  proved 
a  sad  disappointment.  I  don't  think  I  shall  ever  forget  the 
precious  few  months  spent  under  your  guidance." 


34  LETTERS    FROM    STUDENTS 

"I  wish  to  express  in  partial  measure  my  very  sincere 
regret  that  you  have  severed  your  connection  with  Colum- 
bia University.  Though  in  full  realization  of  the  loss  to 
the  University,  which  those  who  have  been  permitted  to 
study  under  you  feel  to  be  very  great,  my  regret  is  pri- 
marily a  selfish  one.  My  courses  through  college  have  been 
persistently  'practical' — in  fact,  I  am  now  studying  law,  and 
took  your  course  in  Comparative  Literature  merely  inci- 
dentally. But  far  from  being  a  mere  incident  in  my  study, 
it  has  proved  to  be  what  I  deem  the  most  valued  course  of 
all  my  college  work.  The  justification  of  this  statement  is 
based  not  so  much  on  what  I  have  already  acquired,  for  I 
have  as  yet  but  a  scanty  knowledge  or  appreciation  of  Lit- 
erature, but  rather  on  the  promise  for  the  future.  Your 
keen  and  discriminating  insight  into  the  world  movements 
in  literature,  your  wealth  of  acquaintance  with  the  great 
writers  of  all  time,  and  your  intensely  interesting  exposition 
of  your  impressions  thus  gleaned,  have  given  rise  to  a 
desire,  a  determination,  to  gain  for  myself  as  wide  and 
appreciative  a  knowledge  of  literature  as  my  faculties  will 
permit.  Thus  my  regret  is  based  on  a  feeling  of  personal 
loss.  I  do  not  extend  sympathy  because  I  know  that  no 
man  needs  sympathy  when  he  is  in  the  right.  I  do  extend 
a  word,  wholly  inadequate,  of  deep  appreciation  of  your 
work  in  so  far  as  I  have  been  permitted  to  enjoy  the  benefits 
thereof.  I  am  sure  that  my  work  under  you,  though  of 
brief  duration,  will  have  a  permanent  place  in  my  memory, 
and  will  leave  a  permanent  impress  on  my  life." 

"I  was  very  much  surprised  this  morning  to  hear  that 
you  had  dropped  your  work  with  us  for  the  rest  of  Compar- 
ative Literature.  When  I  say  that  this  was  a  keen  disap- 
pointment I  think  I  am  speaking  for  the  class ;  certainly 
for  myself.  In  fact,  we  have  even  spoken  of  asking  you  to 
complete  the  lectures  somewhere  outside  the  University. 
Were  you  to  act  on  that  suggestion  I  am  sure  we  would 
be  pleased.  *  *  *  The  work  to  which  you  introduced  us 
was  new  for  me;  you  interested  me  in  it  and  I  have  you 


APPENDIX  A  35 

to  thank  for  this  discovery  of  at  least  a  new  field  for  intel- 
lectual enjoyment." 

"I  am  looking  forward  with  pleasure  to  hearing  the  rest 
of  your  lectures;  I  am  fairly  sure  that  most  of  the 
class  will  seize  the  opportunity  you  offer  us,  at  once. 
Like  a  great  many  people,  we  failed  to  realize  until  you 
were  gone,  just  what  you  and  your  course  meant  to  us. 
That  realization  has  now  hit  home,  and  hit  hard." 

"I  heartily  regret  that  you  are  to  be  with  us  no  longer 
at  Columbia.  My  sympathy  I  am  quite  sure  you  do  not 
want;  I  am  equally  certain  that  Columbia  and  its  honored 
head  need  it  more  than  you." 

"Might  I  ask  you — on  behalf  of  the  rest  of  the  class — 
whether  you  have  yet  decided  the  matter  of  continuing  your 
lectures?  We  are  all  much  interested  in  knowing,  and  the 
desire  that  you  do  so  seems  quite  as  keen  as  ever." 

"I  trust  that  you  will  pardon  the  liberty  which  I  take  in 
writing  you;  but  I  feel  that  I  should  like  to  add  my  voice 
to  those  who  hold  you  in  high  esteem.  I  would  not  presume 
to  offer  you  sympathy,  for  it  is  not  you,  but  the  University 
which  is  in  sore  need  of  it.  Your  lectures  have  been  a  true 
source  of  delight,  and  a  fund  of  knowledge ;  and  the  depri- 
vation of  them,  if  it  must  be  so,  shall  be  keenly  felt.  The 
standpoint  which  you  have  taken  fills  me  with  admiration, 
and  I  know  that  you  will  be  truly  honored  by  those  who 
have  any  manhood,  any  self-assertiveness,  any  love  of  free- 
dom in  their  constitution.  This  action  which  you  have  taken, 
in  living  and  speaking  what  you  feel  to  be  just  and  true, 
shall  always  be  a  living  example  to  me  of  one  who  has 
refused  to  retract,  or  succumb  to  the  abuse  of  authority. 
No  words  I  could  think  of  could  truly  characterize  the 
contempt  which  I  have  for  the  President  and  Trustees  of 
this  University.  But  I  did  not  wish  to  launch  into  any 
invective,  I  merely  wished  to  tell  you,  in  a  feeble  manner, 


36  LETTERS    FROM    STUDENTS 

how  much  I  appreciate  the  value  of  your  work,  how  it  has 
broadened  my  intellectual  horizon,  given  me  a  deeper  insight 
and  keener  appreciation  of  literature  in  general,  and  the 
periods  which  you  covered  in  particular.  I  look  eagerly 
forward  to  the  results  of  the  request  of  our  class  to  have 
you  meet  us  privately,  however  much  I  feel  that  we  are 
infringing  on  your  valuable  time." 

"I  was  extremely  sorry  to  learn — and  I  believe  that  the 
same  may  be  said  of  the  whole  class — that  you  will  not 
conduct  the  remainder  of  the  course.  I  hope  that  I  may 
say  without  impertinence  that  I  always  found  your  lectures 
interesting  and  stimulating.  I  am  sure  that  all  of  us  would 
appreciate  it  very  much  if  you  would  find  it  convenient  to 
continue  the  course  as  an  extra-curricular  activity,  for 
which,  of  course,  the  College  Forum  would  be  ready  to 
grant  us  academic  credit." 

"I  hesitate  to  add  any  poor  word  of  mine  to  the  many 
letters  of  sympathetic  regret  which  you  must  be  receiving. 
Still,  I  thought  you  might  be  interested  to  know  that  the 
prevalent  campus  feeling  at  this  latest  performance  of  the 
authorities  is  something  close  to  indignation.  *  *  *  It  is 
a  matter  of  grief  to  those  of  us  who  love  Columbia  and 
look  up  to  Butler,  to  see  him  exhibit  such  startling  limita- 
tions that  he  would  crush  out  independence  of  thought 
and  freedom  of  expression  in  a  University,  where  of  all 
places  it  should  be  nourished.  I  can  only  wish  that  your 
unjust  removal  will  arouse  the  professors  to  assert  a  little 
more  individuality,  and  extend  to  you  no  merely  conven- 
tional sympathy  in  this  unfortunate  affair." 

"Jester  tenders  you  its  sincerest  best  wishes,  and  regrets 
that  you  are  no  longer  connected  with  the  University.  I 
have  been  instructed  by  a  vote  of  the  Board  to  send  you, 
with  your  permission,  the  Jester  during  the  next  college 
year,  free  of  cost." 


APPENDIX  A  37 

Undergraduate  Testimonial. 

The  students  in  Professor  Spingarn's  undergraduate 
course  at  the  time  of  his  retirement  called  at  his  house  in 
a  body,  for  the  purpose  of  requesting  him  to  continue  his 
lectures  for  the  remainder  of  the  year  outside  of  the  Uni- 
versity, and  presented  to  him  the  following  signed  testi- 
monial engrossed  on  parchment : 

"We,  the  members  of  Joel  Elias  Spingarn's  last  class  in 
Comparative  Literature  at  Columbia  College,  do  tender  to 
him,  upon  the  cessation  of  his  academic  duties,  this  testi- 
monial of  our  gratitude  to  the  teacher  and  of  our  regard 
and  esteem  for  the  man." 

From  the  Father  of  an  Undergraduate. 

"I  want  to  tell  you  how  much  I  personally  regret  your 
retirement  from  the  University.  *  *  *  I  shall  never  forget 
your  very  sympathetic  attitude  toward  my  son,  and  just  at 
the  time,  too,  when  he  was  most  in  need  of  encourage- 
ment. I  shall  remember  that  you  were  in  reality  the  only 
one  in  the  whole  corps  of  instruction  in  the  University  who 
really  took  an  interest  in  him  and  his  affairs.  It  is  a  fact 
that  whatever  the  boy  succeeded  in  doing  at  Columbia  along 
the  lines  of  his  predilection  in  writing,  was  done  in  spite 
of  the  conditions  that  surrounded  him  and  not  as  a  conse- 
quence of  any  helpfulness  or  incentive  they  gave  him.  These 
are  perhaps  rather  hard  things  to  say,  but  they  are  my  con- 
viction, and  in  expressing  them  I  feel  again  actively  my 
indebtedness  to  you." 

FROM  ALUMNI. 

"I  was  passing  through  New  York  *  *  *  when  the  paper 
told  me  of  your  situation  at  Columbia.  The  whole  thing 
would  be  unbelievable  had  I  not  seen  the  same  forces  at 
work  elsewhere,  with  similar  results.  So  it  all  reinforces 
my  double  feeling — my  personal  loyalty  to  you  in  your  gen- 


38  LETTERS   FROM    STUDENTS 

erous,  self-sacrificing  stand,  and  my  humiliation  that  a  great 
university — and  my  own,  too — could  stoop  so  unworthily 
from  the  ideals  we  expect  of  her.  I  have  seen  enough  of 
the  sacrifices  one  makes,  in  coming  before  the  public  as 
a  critic  of  the  administration,  to  know  how  much  may  be 
the  personal  loss,  in  misunderstanding  and  bitter  feeling, 
from  taking  such  a  position  as  you  have  taken.  Yet  I 
think  that  those  whose  judgment  you  really  care  for  will 
not  be  blinded  by  the  obscuring  personalities  that  always 
cloud  such  a  controversy,  and  will  recognize  that  there  is 
a  large  issue  lying  behind,  which  our  universities,  following 
public  opinion  if  they  can't  lead  it,  will  one  day  have  to 
face  squarely  and  solve  rightly." 

"I  saw  the  Herald's  account  this  morning,  and  I  congratu- 
late you  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  You  are  well  out 
of  Columbia — a  cauldron  seething  with  all  the  baser  pas- 
sions, as  far  as  I  can  detect — cowardice,  self-seeking,  dis- 
loyalty, and  so  on.  You  are  fortunate,  too,  I  feel,  in  having 
your  exit  publicly  associated  with  an  act  of  courage  and 
conviction.  Slowly,  but  surely,  the  new  Columbia  is  being 
built  out  of  the  ruin  of  the  old  by  just  such  acts  on  the 
part  of  a  few,  and  your  friends  are  proud  of  you  for  the 
calm  and  fearless  way  in  which  you  have  performed  your 
duty." 

"You  will  believe  that  it  was  with  regret  and  concern 
that  I  learned  yesterday  of  the  severing  of  your  relationship 
with  Columbia;  but  this  regret  and  concern  are  far  deeper 
on  behalf  of  Columbia  than  on  yours.  You,  at  least,  have 
exercised  that  rare  privilege,  of  which  so  few  of  us  avail 
ourselves  in  these  days  of  compromise,  by  being  courageous 
and  sincere  at  all  costs,  and  though  you  will  miss  Columbia, 
far  more  must  the  University  miss  a  man  like  you.  *  *  *  I 
wonder  whether  the  time  has  not  come  when  some  of  our 
Alumni  will  have  to  take  a  definite  stand  against  the  high- 
handedness of  President  Butler.  Quo  usque  tandem  abutere 
patientia  n  ostra  f ' 


APPENDIX  A  39 

"The  newspaper  account  of  President  Butler's  treatment 
of  you  has  just  reached  me.  Doubtless  you  will  be  flooded 
by  a  multitude  of  comments  from  your  friends — but  one 
more  from  me  can't  do  harm;  and  it  may  interest  you  to 
know  how  high-handed  and  unwarranted  Mr.  Butler's 
action  seems  to  one  who  stands  quite  impartially  on  the 
outside  of  academic  circles.  *  *  *  Mr.  Butler's  latest  action 
is  obviously  neither  well-pondered  nor  sane.  That  he 
should  supplement  it  by  disappearing  is  not  very  remark- 
able, and  his  secretary's  statement  that  he  will  not  be  back 
until  April  Fool's  Day  also  seems  appropriate.  I  sincerely 
hope  the  consequences  of  Mr.  Butler's  action  will  not  check, 
even  temporarily,  a  career  as  brilliant  as  yours  has  been. 
Probably  you  yourself  will  not  regret  having  to  continue  it 
in  another  atmosphere,  since,  whatever  post  you  may  now 
accept,  it  is  likely  to  be  more  congenial  than  a  professorship 
under  Mr.  Butler." 

"I  note  by  the  papers  that  you  have  been  made  the  latest 
burnt  offering.  My  feelings  are  rather  mingled.  Unlike 
you,  I  used  to  cut  certain  classes  occasionally  and  attend 
others  in  which  I  was  not  registered.  In  this  way  I  attended 
some  of  Butler's  philosophy  (save  the  mark!)  and  some 
of  Harry  Peck's.  As  an  outsider  I  am  of  course  ignorant 
of  the  politics  involved  in  recent  occurrences,  but  I  am 
pretty  well  convinced  of  the  gross  unfitness  of  Butler  for 
the  presidency  of  Columbia." 


APPENDIX  B.— BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The  following  Bibliography  includes  the  testimony  of 
a  few  scholars  and  reviewers  (especially  foreign)  in  re- 
gard to  Professor  Spingarn's  publications,  exclusive  of  his 
contributions  to  periodicals : 

1.  A  History  of  Literary  Criticism  in  the  Renaissance. 
New  York:  Columbia  University  Press,  1899.  Second 
edition,  revised,  1908.  Translated  into  Italian  by  Antonio 
Fusco,  with  a  commendatory  preface  by  Benedetto  Croce, 
Bari,  1905. 

Letter  from  the  Italian  Poet  and  Scholar  Carducci, 
August  30,  1899: 

"Caro  Signore :  La  ringrazio  del  suo  veramente  pregiatis- 
simo  dono.  Da  tempo  io  invocavo  una  storia  della  critica 
in  Italia.  II  suo  libro  viene  a  compiere  a  superare  ogni  mia 
speranza ;  cosi  profondamente  sono  scrutati  i  concetti,  cosi 
finamente  svolte  le  teoriche  e  studiato  lo  spirito  traverso  il 
Cinquecento,  cosi  bene  analizzati  gli  elementi ;  in  opere  che 
nessuno  in  Italia  si  da  la  pena  di  leggere,  tanto  sono  difficili, 
confuse,  e  (diciamolo  pure)  inamabili.  Credo  che  egual  lode 
meriti  la  trattazione  francese  e  inglese.  Certo  in  Italia  non 
abbiamo  libro  in  proposito  che  si  approssimi  pur  con  lungo 
intervallo  al  libro  suo.  Di  che  Lo  ringrazio  anche  per  la 
letteratura  italiana.  La  saluto  cordialmente  e  me  Le 
affermo 

obbligatissimo 

Giosue  Carducci."1 


1  (Translation.)  "Dear  Sir:  I  thank  you  for  your  truly  precious 
gift.  For  some  time  I  have  called  for  a  history  of  criticism  in 
Italy.  Your  book  now  comes  to  surpass  all  my  hopes — so  profoundly 
have  you  examined  the  ideas,  so  finely  unfolded  the  theories  and 

40 


APPENDIX    B  41 

"This  book  comes  from  an  American  university,  and  we 
wonder  why  our  own  scholars  cannot  give  us  work  of  the 
same  kind.  *  *  *  Of  his  learning,  his  grasp  of  general  prin- 
ciples, his  tact,  lucidity,  and  good  sense,  it  is  only  just  to 
speak  in  high  terms  of  praise." — London  Daily  Chronicle, 
September  15,  1899. 

"Mr.  Spingarn  shows  in  every  page  of  his  work  the 
almost  enormous  extent  of  his  erudition.  But  he  writes 
lucidly  and  simply ;  his  learning  never  appears  tedious.  His 
volume  is  the  handbook  of  the  subject  of  which  it  treats." — 
London  Spectator,  December  30,  1899. 

Letter  from  the  late  Professor  S.  H.  Butcher,  M.  P., 
President  of  the  British  Academy,  July  23,  1899 : 
"Dear  Mr.  Spingarn:  Allow  me  to  offer  you  my  hearty 
thanks  for  your  book,  which  is  one  of  the  most  valuable 
and  interesting  pieces  of  literary  history  I  have  read  for  a 
long  time.     I  myself  have  learnt  much  that  was  new  to  me, 
and  I  was  hardly  aware  that  so  great  and  so  rich  a  field 
had  hitherto  remained  unworked.  *  *  *  I  hope  that  we  may 
some  day  make  one  another's  personal  acquaintance,  per- 
haps in  London.     If  you  are  ever  likely  to  visit  England 
or  Scotland,  do  not  fail  to  let  me  know  beforehand.   I  am 
Yours  truly  and  gratefully, 

S.  H.  Butcher." 

Letter  from  Professor  Marcelino  Menendez  y  Pelayo, 

Director  of  the  National  Library  of  Spain, 

January  6,  1900: 

"He  tenido  mucho  gusto  en  recibir  y  mucho  provecho  en 

leer  la  bella  History  of  Literary  Criticism  in  the  Renais- 


studied  the  spirit  of  the  16th  Century,  so  well  analyzed  the  ele- 
ments— in  works  which  are  so  difficult,  so  confused,  and  (let  us 
admit  also)  so  tedious,  that  no  one  in  Italy  has  ever  taken  the 
trouble  to  read  them.  I  believe  that  the  French  and  English  sec- 
tions of  your  book  merit  equal  praise.  Certainly  in  Italy  we  have 
no  work  on  the  subject  which  in  any  way  approaches  your  book. 
Therefore  I  thank  you  in  the  name  of  Italian  literature.  I  salute 
you  cordially  and  subscribe  myself. 

Gratefully  yours,  Giosue  Carducci." 


42  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

sance  que  Vd.  me  hizo  el  honor  de  enviarme.  Creo  que  ha 
acertado  Vd.  mejor  que  ninguno  de  los  que  en  analogas 
tareas  nos  habiamos  ocupado,  a  trazar  la  genealogia  de  las 
ideas  criticas  en  la  epoca  del  Renacimiento,  y  a  determinar 
con  exactitud  el  influjo  de  la  cultura  italiana  en  los  precep- 
tistas  de  toda  Europa.  Cuando  reimprima  mi  Historia  de 
las  ideas  esteticas,  tendre  ocasion  de  mencionar  el  libro 
de  Vd.  y  aprovecharme  de  su  ensefianza." 

"Voici — et  c'est  le  fait  recent  le  plus  considerable — que 
les  £tats-Unis,  avec  l'admirable  outillage  de  leurs  Univer- 
sites  neuves,  entrent  en  ligne:  ils  nous  ont  envoye  Tan 
dernier,  un  essai  richement  documente  sur  les  origines  de  la 
doctrine  classique  (J.  E.  Spingarn,  History  of  Literary 
Criticism  in  the  Renaissance).  II  faudra,  desormais,  comp- 
ter avec  Terudition  du  Nouveau-Monde." — Gustave  Lanson, 
in  Revue  de  Synthese  Historique,  Paris,  August,  1900. 

"Thorough  in  execution,  good  in  method  and  style,  and 
an  excellent  example  of  what  a  monograph  in  literary  his- 
tory should  be." — The  Nation,  New  York,  December  28, 
1899. 

"Certo  il  suo  saggio  con  sobrio  disegno,  con  netta  preci- 
sione  d'idee,  con  larga  e  ben  digesta  erudizione,  segua 
sicuramente  le  linee  principali  della  storia  d'uno  de'  piu 
complessi  e  rilevanti  fatti  dello  spirito  moderno;  e  *  *  * 
come  elaborazione  di  criteri  direttivi  per  intendere  lo  svol- 
gimento  della  critica  letteraria  e  la  formazione  del  classic- 
ismo  dovra  essere  ricercato  e  sara  letto  di  tutti  con  soddisfa- 
zione." — Prof.  Giovanni  Gentile,  in  Giomale  Storico  della 
Letter atur a  Italiana,  Turin,  1900,  vol.  xxxvi.,  p.  415  sq. 

"No  venturer  in  this  subject  dare  reckon  without  the 
learned  author  of  the  History  of  Criticism,  or  the  American 
scholar  who  broke  fresh  ground  in  the  remarkable  volume 
on  Literary  Criticism  in  the  Renaissance.  To  the  thanks 
which  I  owe  to  them  for  my  share  of  these  public  gifts,  I 
add  my  hearty  acknowledgment  of  not  a  few  happy 
suggestions    which    our    friendship    has    made    possible." 


APPENDIX    B  43 

— G.  Gregory  Smith,  Elizabethan  Critical  Essays,  Oxford, 
1904,  preface. 

"II  libro  dello  Spingarn,  fin  da  quando  vide  la  luce  nel 
testo  inglese,  ebbe  lodi  meritate  ed  autorevoli.  *  *  *  II  libro 
fa  onore  a  lui  ed  alia  critica  americana." — Prof.  Francesco 
Flamini,  in  Rassegna  Bibliografica  delta  Letteratura  Italiana, 
anno  xiv.,  1906. 

"Professor  Spingarn's  History  of  Literary  Criticism  in 
the  Renaissance,  which  has  now  been  issued  in  a  revised 
edition,  augmented  by  a  chapter  embodying  the  results  of 
the  author's  more  recent  researches,  was  originally  published 
nine  years  ago.  The  German  phrase  'epoch-making'  is 
now  often  applied  to  books  which  do  not  deserve  it,  but  it 
might  be  justly  applied  to  this  enquiry  of  Professor  Spin- 
garn's."— Prof.  Brander  Matthews,  in  the  Forum,  New 
York,  August,  1908. 

"Diese  bahnbrechende  Studie." — Prof.  Alois  Brandl,  in 
Herrig's  Archiv,  1908,  vol.  cxxi.,  p.  213. 

"Dr.  Spingarn's  learned  and  skillful  account  of  the  rise  of 
Aristotelian  canons  of  criticism." — Ferris  Greenslet,  in 
Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1902. 

"All  English-reading  students,  whether  of  criticism  or  of 
the  Renaissance,  owe  to  Mr.  Joel  Elias  Spingarn  the  heart- 
iest thanks  for  his  very  useful  History  of  Literary  Criticism 
in  the  Renaissance,  a  book  which  most  courageously  and 
carefully  explores  and  maps  out  a  region  of  literature  hith- 
erto far  more  talked  of  than  known.  There  are,  naturally 
enough,  points  on  which  I  disagree  with  Mr.  Spingarn.  *  *  * 
But  no  differences  can  prevent  my  acknowledging  the  help 
he  has  given  me  here,  and  still  more  elsewhere." — George 
Saintsbury,  The  Earlier  Renaissance,  London,  1901,  p. 
376,  n. 

"I  have  cheerfully  to  acknowledge  the  forerunnership  and 
help  of  Mr.  Joel  Elias  Spingarn,  whose  History  of  Literary 
Criticism  appeared  in  1899.     I  shall  have  occasion  to  differ 


44  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

with  Mr.  Spingarn  here  and  there;  and  his  conception  of 
a  History  of  Criticism  is  not  mine,  just  as,  no  doubt,  mine 
is  not  his.  But  the  obligations  of  the  second  treader  of  a 
previously  untrodden  path  to  the  first  are  perhaps  the  great- 
est that  fall  to  be  acknowledged  in  any  literary  work;  and 
I  acknowledge  them  in  Mr.  Spingarn's  case  to  the  fullest 
extent  possible." — George  Saintsbury,  History  of  Criticism, 
London,   1902,  vol.  ii.,  p.  3,  n. 

"The  most  luminous  account  yet  given  of  a  field  of  lit- 
erary history  which  teems  with  obscure  problems." — Prof. 
C.  H.  Herford,  in  Manchester  Guardian,  January  15,  1900. 

"Zum  Schluss  wollen  wir  Herrn  Dr.  Spingarn's  Buch 
bestens  empfehlen,  denn  es  ist  eine  gediegene  Arbeit,  die 
gewissenhafte  und  scharfsichtige  Forschung  mit  klarer  und 
anschaulicher  Darstellung  verbindet,  und  dem  Verfasser 
sowie  der  Columbia-Universitat  zur  Ehre  gereicht." — Prof. 
E.  P.  Evans,  in  Die  Nation,  Berlin,  April  21,  1900. 

"Beiden  Werken  hat  die  Kritik  hiiben  und  driiben  reiches 
Lob  gespendet.  Die  nicht  nur  inhaltlich,  wissenschaftlich 
tiichtigen,  sondern  auch  ausserst  anregenden  und  gut 
geschriebenen  Bucher,  die  wir  jedem  englischkundigen 
Gebildeten  empfehlen,  ehren  die  Columbia  University  in 
New  York  und  insbesondere  deren  litteraturvergleichende 
Sektion,  aus  denen  sie  hervorgegangen  sind." — Prof.  L.  P. 
Betz,  in  Das  litterarische  Echo,  Berlin,  July,  1901. 

"Eine  tibersichtliche,  gedrangte  und  treffende  Darstellung 
die  iiberall  das  Wesentliche  heraushebt  und  sich  nie  in 
Detail  verliert,  ermoglicht  es  dem  Verfasser  das  grosse 
Gebiet  in  einem  kleinen  und  ansprechenden  Buch  zu  bewal- 
tigen." — Prof.  Karl  Vossler,  in  Literturblatt  filr  germanische 
und  romanischc  Philologie,  September,  1900. 

"L'objet  de  ce  livre  est  de  la  plus  haute  importance.*  *  * 
La  synthase  de  M.  Spingarn,  on  le  voit,  a  le  merite  d'etre 
aussi  neuve  que  solide." — Eugene  Bouvy,  in  the  Bulletin 
Italien,  Bordeaux,  1901,  t.  i.,  no.  2. 


APPENDIX    B  45 

"Die  empfehlenden  Worte,  mit  der  wir  die  erste,  englische 
Ausgabe  begriisst  haben,  bleiben  in  vollstem  Masse  zu  recht 
bestehen.  Die  grundliche  Information,  die  klare  Sachlich- 
keit  und  die  Reichhaltigkeit  des  Inhalts  sichern  dem  Buche 
einendauerdnenPlatz  unterden  grundlegendenNachschlage- 
werken,  und  die  geschickte  Verwebung  der  zahllosen  Details 
in  eine  wohldurchdachte,  einheitliche  Darstellung  machen  es 
auch  zur  ersten  Einfuhrung  geeignet." — Prof.  Ph.  Aug. 
Becker,  in  the  Deutsche  Litteraturzeitung,  Berlin,  January 
20,  1906. 

"E  il  nostro  torto  apparisce  piu  grave  se  poi  si  pensi  che 
non  pochi  fra  gli  americani  piu  cospicui  per  ingegno  e  per 
dottrina  ci  sono  amici  fervidi,  sinceri,  operosi,  che  studiano 
noi  e  le  cose  nostre  e  s'adoprano  a  farci  conoscere  seria- 
mente  dai  loro  connazionali.  A  modo  suo,  F.  Marion 
Crawford  non  ci  voleva  meno  bene  di  Willard  Fiske,  di 
Charles  Eliot  Norton,  di  J.  E.  Spingarn." — G.  Sacconi,  in 
Corriere  d' Italia,  Rome,  November  29,  1909. 

2.  American  Scholarship;  Les  Belles-Lettres  et  L'Ern- 
dition  en  Amerique  an  point  de  vue  academique:  Mem- 
oire  lu  au  Congres  d'Histoire  Comparee.  Macon,  1901  (re- 
printed from  the  Proceedings  of  the  Congress  of  Com- 
parative History,  Paris,  1900). 

"Tot  de  geschiedenis  der  studie  van  de  vergelijkende  let- 
terkunde  leverde  de  jonge  Amerikaansche  geleerde  J.  E. 
Spingarn  een  korte  bijdrage.  *  *  *  'Ons  land,'  zei  de  jeug- 
dige,  sympathieke  geleerde,  'is  ontdekt  geworden  door  Ger- 
manen  en  Latijnen;  wij  wenschen  ons  aandeel  te  hebben  in 
beider  beschaving.'  *  *  *  Een  zeer  gunstig  bekend  werk 
van  den  heer  Spingarn  is  zijne  History  of  Literary  Criticism 
in  the  Renaissance." — Prof.  A.  G.  van  Hamel,  in  De  Gids, 
Amsterdam,  July,  1901. 

"If  Dr.  Spingarn  is  as  good  a  prophet  as  he  promises  to 
be  a  'comparative'  critic,  we  shall  have  to  look  to  America 


46  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

for  guidance  in  these  matters.  *  *  *  The  institution  of  such 
curricula  as  are  now  offered  by  the  School  of  Comparative 
Literature  in  the  Columbia  University  of  New  York  will 
do  much  to  effect  this  general  purpose,  as  well  as  to  cure 
American  scholarship  of  that  philological  dulness  which  is 
already  commented  upon  in  the  West." — Blackwood's  Mag- 
azine, January,  1901. 

3.  Critical  Essays  of  the  Seventeenth  Century:  Ed- 
ited by  J.  E.  Spingarn.  3  vols.  Oxford:  Clarendon  Press. 
Vols,  i,  ii,  1908;  vol.  iii,  1909. 

"Mr.  Spingarn's  volumes  are  excellent  examples  of  the 
best  results  of  American  scholarship  applied  to  English 
literature.  They  suggest  Teutonic  thoroughness  and  width 
of  reading,  for  references  to  French,  Spanish,  Dutch,  and 
Italian  criticism  are  frequent  in  the  introduction;  and  they 
suggest  that  untiring  industry  in  the  accumulation  of  facts 
and  ideas  has  been  accompanied  by  hard  original  thinking." 
—Birmingham  (England)  Post,  May  5,  1908.  "One  of  the 
most  solid  and  erudite  prefaces  one  has  ever  encountered, 
even  in  a  treatise  on  aesthetics." — Ibid.,  April  15,  1911. 

"Here  our  editor,  with  his  perhaps  unique  familiarity 
with  this  literature,  comes  valiantly  to  the  rescue.  His 
Introduction  is  *  *  *  a  highly  valuable  piece  of  work,  show- 
ing in  a  single  page  more  real  grasp  of  the  subject  than 
Saintsbury's  History  of  Criticism  displays  in  a  chapter." — 
New  York  Nation,  June  18,  1908.  "In  dealing  with  the  first 
two  volumes  of  Prof.  Spingarn's  Critical  Essays  of  the  Sev- 
enteenth Century,  we  called  attention  to  the  excellence  of 
the  editing  and  solid  erudition  of  the  Introduction.  The 
third  volume,  now  before  us,  gives  no  occasion  to  withdraw 
any  word  of  that  commendation." — Ibid.,  November  11, 
1909. 

"Professor  Spingarn's  Introduction  is  an  illuminating 
piece  of  work,  laying  down  the  main  lines  of  his  subject 


APPENDIX    B  47 

with  admirable  clarity  and  following  them  up  with  real 
force  and  insight  and  that  rare  kind  of  erudition  which 
never  grows  pedantic." — London  Spectator,  May  2,  1908. 

"Der  ausgezeichnete  Kenner  der  Renaissancepoetik 
biekt  hier,  was  an  Kunst  Kritik  des  17.  Jahrhunderts 
neben  den  Essays  von  Dryden,  besonders  zu  beachten  ist." — 
Prof.  Alois  Brandl,  in  Herrig's  Archiv,  1909,  vol.  cxxi.,  p. 
477.  "Viele  Anmerkungen  zeugen  von  der  Gelehrsamkeit 
und  eindringend  vergleichenden  Methode  des  Heraus- 
gebers." — Ibid.,  1910,  vol.  cxxii.,  p.  487. 

"Lo  Spingarn  *  *  *  mostra  con  acume  le  origini  di  certe 
idee  nuove,  il  lento  trasformarsi  di  una  teoria  in  un'  altra, 
l'azione  della  filosofia  sulla  critica ;  *  *  *  e  in  ciascun  para- 
grafo  non  mancano  le  idee  ingegnose,  audaci,  paradossali 
qualche  volta." — A.  Galletti,  in  La  Cultura,  July  15,  1909. 

"To  Professor  Saintsbury  we  are  indebted  for  immense 
industry  and  a  wealth  of  knowledge,  agreeably  displayed; 
to  Professor  Spingarn  we  are  grateful  for  the  philosophic 
synthesis  that  can  illumine  and  interpret  facts." — Prof. 
Frank  W.  Chandler,  in  the  Educational  Review,  New  York, 
November,  1909. 

"A  word  of  praise  must  be  added  for  Mr.  Spingarn's 
learned  and  interesting  and  useful  notes.  He  has  selected 
his  material  with  judgment  and  illustrated  it  with  knowl- 
edge and  care,  and  his  book  has  a  high  value." — London 
Academy,  May  2,  1908. 

"Mr.  Spingarn's  long  and  learned  introduction  discusses 
with  brilliancy  the  tendencies  and  characteristics  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  time.  His  texts  *  *  *  are  selected  with  judg- 
ment, and  edited  with  a  minimum  of  interference  between 
us  and  the  original." — London  Outlook,  April,  1908. 

"The  catholic  range  and  value  of  Mr.  Spingarn's  illumi- 
nating notes  (always  shaking  themselves  vitally  free  from 


48  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

mere  philological  and  antiquarian  detail),  and  of  his  vivid 
and  comprehensive  prefatory  essay." — Liverpool  Courier, 
August  7,  1908. 

"Compiled  with  that  clean  intimacy  and  power  which 
made  Mr.  Spingarn's  introduction  to  the  first  volume  of 
the  set  one  of  the  most  notable  pieces  of  criticism  America 
has  lately  proffered  us." — Ibid.,  November  18,  1909. 

"Professor  Spingarn  has  done  good  service  to  the  history 
of  literary  criticism.  His  notes  are  models  of  what  such 
notes  should  be." — London  Morning  Post,  June  11,  1908. 

Letter  from  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  President  of 
Columbia  University,  May  7,  1908: 

"Dear  Professor  Spingarn: 

I  thank  you  most  heartily  for  your  kindness  in  sending  me 
a  copy  of  the  new  edition  of  your  former  book  and  the 
first  two  volumes  of  your  Critical  Essays  of  the  Seventeenth 
Century.  I  spent  last  evening  in  going  through  these  vol- 
umes with  great  satisfaction  and  delight.  It  is  a  matter 
of  no  small  importance  to  Columbia  and  to  American  schol- 
arship to  have  so  thorough  a  piece  of  work  as  this  go  out 
from  the  Oxford  University  Press  by  one  of  our  own  fam- 
ily. I  congratulate  you  most  sincerely  upon  what  you  have 
accomplished. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Nicholas  Murray  Butler/' 

4.  Sir  William  Temple's  Essays  on  Ancient  and  Mod- 
ern Learning  and  on  Poetry:  Edited  by  J.  E.  Spingarn. 
Oxford:  Clarendon  Press,  1909. 

"As  regards  the  editing  of  these  two  essays,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say  more  than  that  they  are  reprinted  from  the 
third  volume  of  a  book  known  and  valued  by  most  students 
of  English  literature,  Professor  Spingarn's  Critical  Essays 
of  the  Seventeenth  Century." — The  Isis,  Oxford,  May  7, 
1910. 


APPENDIX    B  49 

"Professor  Spingarn  has  done  good  service  by  extracting 
Temple's  essays  from  his  admirable  series  of  Critical  Es- 
says of  the  Seventeenth  Century,  and  reprinting  them  in 
one  small  volume." — Birmingham  (England)  Post,  Novem- 
ber 26,  1909. 

"This  scholarly  edition  is  an  addition  of  the  greatest 
value  to  our  educational  literature." — London  Bookman, 
March,  1910. 

5.  The  New  Criticism:  A  Lecture  delivered  at 
Columbia  University,  March  10,  1910.  New  York:  Co- 
lumbia University  Press,  1911  (reprinted  from  the  Colum- 
bia University  Lectures  on  Literature). 

This  lecture  has  aroused  considerable  controversy  in 
England;  A.  B.  Walkley  in  the  London  Times  of  March 
20,  1911 ;  William  Archer  in  the  Morning  Leader  of  August 
5  and  12,  1911;  the  Manchester  Guardian  of  March  20; 
the  Birmingham  Post  of  April  15,  and  numerous  other 
papers  have  devoted  columns  to  answering  its  arguments. 

"Professor  Spingarn  drops  a  shell  into  the  critical  camp 
by  his  essay,  The  New  Criticism.  *  *  *  It  is  the  most 
sweepingly  iconoclastic  utterance  of  its  kind  that  I  have 
ever  seen  and  will  drive  the  conservatives  to  their  guns. 
*  *  *  The  writer  handles  his  theme  with  a  stimulating 
brilliance." — Professor  Richard  Burton,  in  the  Bellman, 
March  25,  1911. 

"Nous  avons  souvent  eu  Toccasion  de  parler  du  Pro- 
fesseur  Spingarn,  Tun  des  plus  brillants  historiens  de  la 
critique  litteraire." — Ch.  Bastide,  in  the  Revue  Critique 
d'Histoire  et  de  Litterature,  Paris,  August  19,  1911. 

"A  very  striking  lecture." — Oxford  Magazine,  England, 
June  8,  1911. 

"A  little  thinking  after  the  close  of  this  blood-stirring 
lecture  leads  one  to  suspect  that  what  our  critical  apparatus 


50  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

needs  is  readaptation  rather  than  destruction.  But  it  is  a 
good  thing  to  have  it  all  challenged.  Some  of  it  cannot 
survive;  let  such  of  it  as  can,  justify  itself.  Such  wood- 
chopping  is  a  refreshing  sign  of  vigorous  intellectual  life  in 
an  American  university  *  *  *  and  one  may  hope  that 
it  is  only  a  coincidence  that  he  is  no  longer  a  college  pro- 
fessor."— Chicago  Evening  Post,  September  8,  1911. 

"J.  E.  Spingarn,  autore  del  ben  noto  libro,  La  Critica 
letteraria  nel  Rinascimento,  ha  pubblicato  una  sua  con- 
ferenza  dal  titolo,  The  New  Criticism.  *  *  *  Una 
mirabile  chiarezza  a  un  gran  calore  d'espozione." — La 
Cultura,  edited  by  De  Lollis,  Rome,  1911,  nos.  13-14. 

"He  discusses  the  subject  upon  a  basis  of  broad  historical 
knowledge,  and  in  a  highly  suggestive  and  stimulating 
fashion." — The  Dial,  Chicago,  April  1,  1911. 

"A  stimulating  and  thoughtful  lecture." — Edinburgh 
Scotsman,  April  3,   1911. 

"Once  in  a  while  there  appears  a  message  that  is  of 
real  value  to  all  lovers  of  good  books  and  noble  litera- 
ture; a  message  that  is  sincere,  plain  spoken,  and  vital. 
Such  a  message  is  Professor  Spingarn's  booklet,  The  New 
Criticism." — Los  Angeles  Herald,  March  26,  1911. 

"Carissimo  Amico :  Grazie  di  cuore  del  bellissimo  libretto, 
nel  quale  avete  voluto  parlare  cosi  benevolmente  di  me,  e, 
qual  ch'  e  piu,  farvi  propugnatore  d'idee  che  a  me  sem- 
brano  vere." — Benedetto  Croce,   Naples,  March   19,   1911. 

Letter  from  J.  W.  Mackail,  Professor  of  Poetry  in 
the  University  of  Oxford,  March  7,  1911. 

"I  have  to  thank  you  very  warmly  for  having  sent  me 
your  lecture  on  the  New  Criticism;  I  have  read  it  with 
great  interest  and  admiration.  *  *  *  Indeed,  I  have 
seldom  had  the  pleasure  of  reading  so  much  important 
truth  brought  together  into  so  compact  a  form  as  in  this 
lecture." 


APPENDIX    B  51 

6.  The  New  Hesperides  and  Other  Poems.  New 
York:    Sturgis  &  Walton  Company,  1911. 1 

Letter   from   John   Hay,   U.    S.    Secretary   of    State, 
September  25,    1901. 

"Dear  Mr.  Spingam: 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  poem,  which  I  have 
read  with  great  interest  and  enjoyment.  I  am  old  and 
tired,  but  I  still  take  pleasure  in  the  dreams  of  other  men, 
when  they  treat  of  noble  things — and  are  well  told.  Lines 
like 

'For  Spring  finds  Summer  trembling  in  the  root, 
And  the  March  mists  are  melting  into  flowers,' 
and 

'Only  the  seeker  worthy  of  the  quest 
Shall  find  the  perfect  land' 
remind  me  of  the  days  when  I,  too,  dwelt  in  Arcadia. 
Yours    faithfully, 

John    Hay." 

"The  author  of  The  New  Hesperides  *  *  *  has  al- 
ready proved  himself  a  critic  of  a  very  high  order  in  a 
lecture  on  The  New  Criticism,  recently  reviewed  in  these 
columns.  *  *  *  We  very  gladly  recognize  the  many 
fine  qualities  which  proclaim  him  to  be  a  true  poet." — 
London  Academy,  September  9,  1911. 

"American  pride  takes  many  forms  of  expression,  and 
sometimes  the  vaunting  of  the  glories  of  the  Spread  Eagle 
is  distasteful  to  the  sensibilities  of  European  culture.  But 
Mr.  Spingarn's  poems  idealize  the  self-confidence  of  Uncle 
Sam  with  so  lofty  an  imaginative  ardor  and  with  so  admir- 
able a  grace  of  poetic  art,  that  it  is  impossible  not  to  admire 
the  spirit  of  the  poems.  The  old  Hesperides,  as  readers  of 
Grecian  learning  do  not  need  to  be  reminded,  were  the  happy 


1  The  title-poem  of  this  volume  was  read  before  the  Society  of 
Phi  Beta  Kappa  at  Columbia  University  in  June,  1901,  and  privately 
printed  by  the   Society   for   distribution  among   its  members. 


52  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

islands  of  antiquity,  where  human  nature  reached  its  best. 
The  new  Hesperides  celebrated  in  the  chief  piece  in  this 
charming  book  seem  at  first  as  if  they,  the  modern  Happy 
Islands,  where  progress  is  to  reach  its  ultimate  pitch,  are 
going  to  be  somewhere  in  the  West  of  the  United  States, 
perhaps  in  California.  But  it  turns  out  that  they  are  an 
ideal  land  to  which  all  humanity  is  more  or  less  closely 
to  approximate,  however  ahead  in  that  direction  the  United 
States  may  be.  The  remaining  poems  in  the  book,  an  elegant 
Prothalamion,  a  'dream  of  rose  gardens,'  and  some  pieces 
about  love  and  gardens  and  the  spring,  are,  each  in  its  own 
way,  no  less  eloquent  and  impassioned." — Edinburgh  Scots- 
man, May  25,  1911. 

"The  prospective  reader  who  opens  this  slender  volume 
expecting  to  find  in  it  only  such  mediocre  verses  as  is  most  of 
our  present-day  poetry,  has  in  store  for.  him  a  delightful 
surprise.  For  these  are  true  poems — of  a  minor  singer 
to  be  sure,  but  one  to  whom  has  indeed  been  vouchsafed 
some  portion  of  the  divine  afflatus.  Finished  workman- 
ship, melody,  aptness  of  phrase,  depth  of  passion  and  of 
thought — all  are  here.  *  *  *  But  the  best  poems  in 
the  book  are  the  simpler  verses  gathered  under  the  general 
title  'Young  Love.'  In  these,  three  characteristics  are 
chiefly  apparent :  a  passion  that  is  genuine,  deep,  and  pure ; 
a  discerning  love  of  nature,  and  a  use  of  words  that  com- 
bines precision  with  music  and  pleasing  imagery." — The 
Sewanee  Review,  October,  1911. 

"He  has  at  all  events  a  spirit,  a  touch,  and  especially  an 
intonation,  distinctly  recalling  the  English  poet  [Matthew 
Arnold].  We  observe  with  pleasure,  too,  his  possession 
of  that  virtue  of  which  Arnold  made  so  much,  both  in  pre- 
cept and  in  practice — the  virtue  of  clarity.  His  emotion, 
again,  is  of  a  restrained  and  purified  kind,  and  in  the  poem 
which  gives  this  thin  volume  its  title  he  expresses  patriotic 
ardor  in  just  that  note  of  exaltation  which  moves  us  the 
more  through  its  freedom  alike  from  sentimentality  and 
coldness.     *     *     *     It  is  especially  for  a  certain  delicate 


APPENDIX   B  53 

earnestness  that  his    work    is    to    be    very    cordially  com- 
mended."— New  York  Tribune,  June  17,  1911. 

"Nobody  can  read  the  little  volume  of  poems  just  issued 
from  the  pen  of  Joel  Elias  Spingarn  without  realizing 
that  he  is  a  true  poet." — Rochester  Post-Express,  May  17, 
1911. 

"He  has  the  sense  of  beauty  conjoined  with  the  gift  of 
subtle  and  refined  expression.  *  *  *  He  rarely  fails 
to  strike  a  high  note  with  pure  intonation." — William  Mor- 
ton Payne,  in  the  Dial,  Chicago,  August  16,  1911. 

"His  poems  are  not  all  dreams,  however,  of  'Italian  Pop- 
pies' and  'Rose  Gardens'  and  'New  Hesperides'  lapped  in 
tideless  summer  seas.  'The  New  Palace  of  Art'  surges 
with  a  social  passion  that  can  see  no  beauty  in  a  beauty 
reared  on  groans;  no  justice  in  those  conditions  we  call 
modern  civilization,  which  force  a  hundred  to  sweat  and 
starve  in  order  that  one  may  play  jack-stones  with  dia- 
monds. This  poem  may  well  be  quoted  in  its  entirety." 
—Denver  News,  May  29,  1911. 

"A  charming  little  book  that  contains  some  real  poetry, 
which,  in  its  absence  of  strain  and  eccentricity,  it  is  a  plea- 
sure to  read.  These  lyrics  possess  a  quality  of  imagina- 
tion based  upon  personal  dignity  that  yet  is  not  afraid  to 
let  itself  go  when  the  impulse  of  song  comes.  There  is 
no  gainsaying  the  loveliness  of  such  things  as  'A  Dedica- 
tion,' 'Spring  Passion,'  and  'Italian  Poppies.'  *  *  *  It 
is  the  work  of  a  genuine  poet." — Richard  Burton,  in  the 
Bellman,  October  28,  1911. 

7.  Jacobean  and  Caroline  Criticism:  A  chapter  con- 
tributed to  the  Cambridge  History  of  English  Literature, 
vol.  vii.  Cambridge  (England) :  Cambridge  University 
Press,  1911. 

"The  only  American  contribution  to  the  present  volume 
is  by  Prof.  J.  E.  Spingarn,  from  whose  authoritative  pen 
we  have  the  chapter  on  Jacobean  and  Caroline  criticism." 
— New  York  Evening  Post,  October  21,  1911. 


